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ir past tense endings - win

Had to call CPS / the cops on my neighbours last night.

I live in a large apartment building and sound carries at night when we have the heat off and the elevators are quiet.
For over the past month I've been hearing escalating arguments between a young boy and presumably his mother. They were pretty constant and I was mulling over about calling CPS just for emotional harm. I've never met this child though and I didn't know where the noise was coming from - I thought from the unit above us.
Last night I had fallen asleep for about an hour or so when they both (the now familiar voices of the boy and mom) just started screaming. My husband had earphones in but I bolted up and instantly was like Jesus fucking Christ this kid is being beaten. Just sobbing and clear as day begging not to be hurt, mommy stop please, my arm hurts etc. My whole body just tensed and started shaking and I knew I had to call someone immediately but I still had this horrible doubt that I was doing something wrong or inappropriate or overreacting. I dialed 911 and also called CPS directly. The cops came about a half hour later and of course by then things had calmed down but I was shaken by the clear hallmarks of violence. I was so sure it was coming from upstairs but it turned out that unit was possibly unoccupied. They banged and then investigated throughout the building.
They did end up locating the family and turns out they are directly below us. After spending an hour downstairs the cops came back up to assure me that the child was okay (like not needing medical attention) and that "tempers flared" and that there was "poor judgement" and that someone had been cautioned. They thanked me repeatedly for calling and asked that we please continue to call if we ever hear anything like that again. The cops knew I also called CPS and said they would send over their report / referral right away for the social workers to do their thing. I asked for the IR # and their badges to give to CPS and they're like dont worry we know what we're doing.
CPS called me just now, 12 hours later and the cops still haven't sent in their shit and CPS is now having to call the division to follow up because obviously my report to them was concerning.
I have PTSD, diagnosed in 2017 and I have previously worked for fucking CPS and this still makes my blood boil. I couldn't sleep at all last night and I feel like I'm constantly listening, trying to see if he is okay. He apparantly has a younger sister in their too and it breaks my heart. I don't know what happened but I'm fucking praying that these kids are okay. I've been able to sort through my own childhood of abuse at the hands of female parental figures and the whole thing is just triggering AF.
I know I did the right thing but it's left me so shaken and I'm feeling particularly adrift today. Sorry for the ramblings.
submitted by lindseybobinsey to CPTSD [link] [comments]

My biggest roleplay trauma: 8 year campaign of being an (unwilling) spectator.

Wow. This is my third post in a very short while. Writing my bad experiences here is helping me a lot, so I got fired up to put in writing this as a form of self terapy from the incident. I know what you may be asking, and I'm gonna clear some stuff from the get-go.
-8 years is a LONG time, but it was mainly online/forum, with some live sessions. It was a slow campaign, and for a year and a half I abandoned for reasons in the story, technically it was more of 6.5 years.
-I lasted that long because after like 2-3 years I went with the mentality of "well, maybe soon it all will be better for my character". DO NOT make my mistake, ever. I kept hoping and motivating myself with this because I loved my character, and wanted her to have a happy ending...end eventually, an ending at all.
-English is not my primary language.
-Trigger warning: this character had some dark toughts, very graphic situations, and self harmed herself in the late part of the story, and got some nasty stuff done to her, not sexual but think of mutilation and pregnancy...mixed. I will trigger warning again when the moments arrive.
This experience is quite delicated for me, even if it's bread and butter in this sub, and I'll take the time to write everything I remember. It is so special to me because I poured my heart and soul on my character, and got only pettiness as return.
My character will be called S. She was an isolated dark mage from an isolated mage family that people despised because of them being cursed (powerfull spells, but kinda feed and amplify negativity). Their ancestor made a pact with the devil for this. Satan, specifically, since there was the four guys in this setting (Satan, Lucifer, Leviathan, Belial).
She had a past of getting her eyes ripped off by her brother, and they had a whole kinda creepy insinuated incest (they never did anything but since they where kinda isolated they grew a bit too close) thing that I've tought that will be nice to superate in game as a toxic relationship. I know, creepy as fuck, and looking back now even with GoT around, I wouldnt make this background again.
Anyways, her close brush with death make her want to go live the life (and maybe get closure with his exiled/missing brother), and off she went travelling, and that's the begining of the story.
The GM is Edgyman from my previous post. He has some sort of god complex and thinks that being rude and into religion/satanic/dark magic stuff is cool, and really likes to defend controversial characters and the evil guys. Think of him as the guy that will say and defend that Griffith did nothing wrong and Kaska loved him. If you know what I am talking, you know, but I didn't knew him that well back then, he was just my new master and eventually friend.
The setting was a homebrew of anime, fantasy, and a lot of stuff kinda plagiarized from some popular animes, and essencially a fantasy world. With potions, wizards and stuff.
S started having a librarian job, in her prologue. I liked the detail of doing this little extra prologue, and ate up very interested what lore and info came to me. I was working for some big guy, a magistrate of the "best country of the world" (self proclaimed). The biggest, richest, with a mysterious King that people barely knew about. And there was like 9 magistrates that where kinda his second in command and stuff. Well, I work for one of those in his mansion's library.
I started meeting THE Dmnpc, Gary (Gary Stu everyone, I changed his name). There's a lot on this history but this, ladies and gentleman, was the true protagonist. The npc of the character this guy played in the original campaign (this was some sort of remasteremix I found out way later). I got the description of a very, very atractive young boy, noble, kind and nice. He comes to check some books with a friend, I interact a bit with him, I got some of his backstory about his mom being dead, he's chatting also with another npc son of another magistrate. Did I mention he's handsome? He was described as the most handsome man of the world...more than once. A bit femenine looking but beautiful and manly regardless.
Fast forward a bit of slice of life, and I go to a concert where he's amazing since he's the equivalent of a bard, and after he essencially tells me that something big is going to happen, a world war, and S offers her help out of curiosity more than nobility. They get in a super big ship and sail away. Here's where the rest of my long time npc party and I met. A grumpy alchemist, a stoic knight, a cheeky archer, a funny thief, and the very busty, beautiful, redhead, gorgeous, innocent, femenine maid and friend of Gary. And you may be surprised, but she was very obviously in love with Gary.
The purpouse of the travel is to get resources and become stronger to fight the good fight. Interesting, right? I tought so too!
In the way we see this mythical whale monsteguardian of nature, that fascinated S tried to show respect, by offering a gem with some condensed darkness (S is a dark mage, again, darkness, darkness, darkness, offensive spells, curses). The whale didn't like the darkness jewel and was gonna attack the ship, so S decided to get down the boat and get killed without fucking the ship. And that she did.
In this world I learned is very easy to revive, so after fetching her body, she got revived and the travel went on. And I died or almost died a lot here. We arrive to a dragon fortress country,and I spent the next months in rol learning lore, investigationg, and discovering a lot of stuff...of Gary. About how cool was his family, about how he was the grandson of Lucifer, about how this country we left declared war on the world and the King knew all along what we where gonna do and let us go for misterious reasons.
I was hyped about how would I fare in this big conflicted world.
Months of playing transformed in a year, and I was still kinda in the side, discovering more lore about Gary's family, about Lucifer (that was another hell of an DMNPC, the most beautiful, cunning, majestic, sexy man ever by the descriptions), etc.
This game had multiple religions but only the 2 or 3 favored by the master where relevant. I liked the ones that adored the magic, since S' aspiration was to be a very specialized mage. She didn't care being a paper sheet in resistance, but wanted to be a very traditional mage, use a pointed hat and use very powerful magic. She joined this religion, and it was never relevant, since GM kinda hated mages in general.
The favored religions were the one of the demon princes (the 4 from before), a homebrew that was the faith of the warring country of Gary, and christianism because well, they complement the demon ones.
I slowly started to feel a pattern in the fights and little war battles that happen here or there...I never, ever,can finish off anyone or even hold my position. In each battle I got my ass handed to me, but I survive by getting saved by the party of the boat that are kinda my friends, or any other ally NPC.
I am a bit frustrated as S is, but she takes this as something to overcome. She wants to be stronger to help stop this war. And since she and the cheeky archer kinda started a romance, she wanted to let a peaceful world to her children too.
After some more of me getting smashed around ans seeing NPCs do cool things and save me, Lucifer starts appearing before me, in my dreams. Yup. Just like that. He offers some deals to help me, and I reject them because hell no. But after a while, S is starting to think that she's just not enough by herself. Maybe she can be more usefull if harnessed some power-ups and so it started the custom of S being in mortal danger and he appearing to give her advice, or some power up to barely scrap by...still saved of course, never on my own.
Talking about children, S got pregnant with two boys. It wasn't anything scandalous, kinda normal and managed with skip time. I never tought initially of the posibility but it felt natural and I tought that it would be cool and dramatic to have a new motivation with the two babies coming.
But oh boy...
(Trigger warning 1)
She got kidnapped by another DMNPC that beat her and the other 3 npcs around her. This very young, all black clothes assassin son of a family of assasins, whatever. He beats everyone with ease (Minus Gary, her husband, and the other 2 guys that where out), and takes her to get extorted by a very powerful and important satanist about her hometown location. While alone and understanding that she can't risk her children, she draws a map to give to the evil guy. The previously beaten NPCs come to the rescue and she hears this, grabs the map and hides it in her robes,and proceeds to move to the NPCs. In the escape this satanist guy just randomly knew to put his hand inside her robes and grab the map, then kicks S against a wall, and shoots her in the stomach with a revolver. But one of the npcs covers for her, fortunately.
This thing of the bad guy just knowing where I put the map pissed me off, but the master excused himself like "well I needed this to happen". Red flag but, whatever...
(Trigger warning 2, very graphic content forward)
S keeps to herself in the party's mansion, already heavily pregnant, and the husband, Gary and etc are away doing some diplomacy stuff only for the men or something. The place fills with poison to knock out everyone, and a demonic dog and an eagle enter the stance. S knows that this is some bs of his ancestor, an actual demon now, but doesn't understand why this is happening, but fights back.
This things take her away from the mansion to an isolated place, and she fights back with all her might, killing one of them. They proceed to fuse in some sort of chimera dog-eagle, finally beat S up and jump and bite her neck.
While this is happening, a claw burries on her stomach, and everything starts to go dark as she sees one of her children ripped off from her. Of course, I was horrified and cried about this by myself.
(Trigger warning end)
Then a convenient apparition of her best friend saves her, but she lost one children and the other is in bad state. Her friend, an archmage, crafts some kind of water womb for the survivor, leaving a very traumatized and depressed S to recover.
His brother claimed the soul of her second children, and S again accepts a deal for Lucifer to get a powerful (DM)NPC to help her get her son back, and also some magic powers.
To this point, S, who wanted to be a master dark magician is using all types of magic. She figured that she can't help if she keeps her dream of beign an specialist of one type of magic, and goes on.
Child is recovered after some horrific stuff that breaks her mind. She had to take a cruise to a hidden place that could only be accessed by paying your wight in gold or suffering pain all the way.
(Trigger warning, graphic)
She chose the second, since she didn't have that kind of gold, and endured some hours of traveling down the boat in a ghoul-filled river. She got eaten alive very graphically until she was a mass of meat and broken bones, then regenerated, then repeat, for hours.
(Trigger warning end)
When she arrived to this misty islands, the GM tells me that she's permanently traumatized and has a form of schizophrenia, seeing zombies and ghouls in the corner of her eye all the time.
She vomits a bit, tried to go on, but ends up needing to rest while having terrible nightmares. But of course, a beautiful light shoos the visions away, and Lucifer appears in her mind again to offer her help. She didn't wanted to keep depending on him, but there was no other choice, as the master informed me that a doctor for that didn't exist in that era. Then I kid you not: he described how Lucifer took her face with her hands from behind, and his touch was literally orgasmic "naturally", leaving her mind blank, and he cured her of the ailment. S felt ashamed, I felt disgusted, GM said that it was Lucifer's beauty and inhuman nature.
Moving on, the child was put in a 10 year old body, there was some dialogue between S and her brother, incest attempt rejected by her since she has moved on, and returning the other kid is also made 10 year old to match, by magic. I didn't win this fight or anything, it was cut short and S had to run away before her brother powered up (he was kind of in a transformation).
After this, things went downhill (more) and I was starting to get really tired. DM argues that since it's slow to rp by posts I still didn't got to my shine point. I eated that up stupidly.
S tried everything, and always got beaten up or saved. Eventually she gave up other aspiration (of being a mage in general) and starting to learn physical combat. In this homebew you could took up a lot of classes and stuff.
Here I want to talk about Gary. Gary travelled the world with his party and S, that was part of the group (yeah, he was the leader...) Gary learned classes EXTREMELY fast while everyone else struggled. Other players (there where quite a few but, forum roleplay allows for this kind of solo play that I am telling). He was an expert in every field, smart, funny, shrewd, talented, with blood of a lot of story related important stuff, specially Lucifer and Rainbow warrior blood that is kinda the most op thing in this world. He married the redhead maid, that surprise surprise, was secretly the daughter of the big bad guy, the King of Gary's country, but another npc, a descendant of Leviathan that was very sexy in her clothing, very very busty, and a very powerful assassin, was in love with him too. He also felt atracted to her because "their demon bloodlines attract each other" but since he's so noble never cheated, while the Leviathan girl tried to seduce him.
Back to the classes, Gary Stu was learning a new class in a few days with a master, and even in a single day he mastered a new class. Wrap your head around that. He could learn to be a master ninja in 1 day, or in some other class.
S learned the most basic class after a week of constant training, and all the others she got by selling her soul piece by piece to Lucifer.
Eventually when her kid and her husband where about to die (this one in a live sesion when I travelled to his country in vacation), she sold all that was left off her, and transformed full intro a demon, just like her ancestor. The prospect was kind of ironic but also I found it cool that she was slowly becoming like him...but for different reasons. She decided to burn all she had, to provice a happy peaceful future for her family, and was content with becoming this and safeward her family forever, maybe eventually replacing the evil ancestor.
She got a power that could whipe an entire area of life, 2 times per lifetime, excluding whoever she liked to exclude. She used on of this nukes...that of course, 3 dmnpcs (the assassin boy from before, his sister, another guy, and his best friend irl) survived with ease.
Also this made S, a cute and somewhat plain woman, intro a demonic beauty. GM specified that her hair became jewel colored, her eyes too, her skin softer and...yeah, her tits got inflated to D+ cups, and her butt grew too. Why? Because orgasmic-touch Lucifer only made beautiful stuff. Whatever, this was red flag in an ocean of red flags that my stupid self decided to navigate.
4 years had passed at this point in real time. Being a side stuff times flew, but I was very much in love with S, and even with the mean world that she was born, I was rooting for her to find the end of her story. That's why I kept playing...but half year later, I got enough. This was a tournment for a wish. S tought that winning it she could request help in the war effort.
She lost to GMs best friend, but the second place also got a wish. However, the guy that sponsored the tournment got mad when she tried to use her wish for his help in the war, was forced to apologize, and just ask for a power up for herself.
She got a reality-wrapping ability, that allowed her to say something, and it happened, excluding killing somebody. It sounded amazing in paper and a game-changer, but soon enought I learnt that it didn't work in anyone or anything influenced by someone more powerful than her. The stuff was useful, and gave her one of the two moments where she could do something in the campaign, later mentioned.
(Trigger warning, self harm)
Sometime in between this or the next, S literally wanted to kill herself, and in fact hurt her neck with a dagger. But Lucifer just told to her mind that he will just bring her back whenever he needed her so, she just stopped, cursing never being alone. This of Lucifer always watching and talking to her mind fucked up more her mental state, she had 0 privacy in her own mind.
(Trigger warning end)
In this time the usual formula repeated of me still getting beaten up and saved. I got mutilated here, an arm less there (she grew it back eventually) and some other nasty stuff happening. Hightlight: in a very important battle, she fully accepted that she couldn't do jackshit ever, and took a support role. "If I can't defeat anyone then I can help others do it. I can be happy with being useful..." Really, S just wanted to help at this point, to not be a 0 on the left. She used her reality-wrapping to make an important npc immune to damage, by redirecting it to herself, and determined that she wouldn't die no matter what. This gave the allied a huge edge, and meanwhile she got tortured by the satanist guy that shot her previously and was there conviniently.
Apparently the GM really wanted the allied NPC dead because in a huge cinematic montage he went and made a suicide attack, killing himself even when he didn't suffered a single wound because of S' protection.
After that and in the dragon city, happened my ragequit moment. The city where she and her friends where got attacked by Gary's country. Lucifer gave S the mission of protecting the redhead wife of Gary, because she was pregnant with his geat-grandson. Since the readhead was kinda the only female friend that S had, she accepted happily. The attack culmined in the supreme edgelord DMNPC that appears in front of a lot of allies. Like 12 people, all more powerful than S, including Gary. This guy, all black clothes, eyepatch, black hair, beat everyone up with ease. I knew that I was about to see another cinematic from this dude, and I refused. I tried to use my reality wrapping to power up Gary to be able to beat him, but this guy had the same exact ability as me and cancelled me. He went for the girl and killed her while talking about Gary's lore and that he couldn't be allowed to have a kid.
S, with broken bones and very beaten up, went to her body and tried to use her reality bending to revive her, but the guy hit her to interrupt her and then...her body was made golden dust so she couldn't revive her (because that was necessary for the story and Gary). Edgy guy left the stage, and by the trauma Gary suffered a transformation to become one of those Rainbow dudes that I mentioned where like the most OP thing in this setting, and went away flying to who knows where.
S had a mental breakdown of self hatred at this moment. She was more or less like a mindbroken slave of Yandere Simulator repeating herself that she was useless and worthless, and she reached the conclusion that everything she tried to do, everything she tried to hold, and everything she tried to aid, always failed or broke, and she exiled herself to a nameless island far away from there, to stop ruining everything.
GM did a global 10 year skip, and came back to try and bring S back to the stage. She had numbed herself in this time, she was a demon already so, she just distanced her from emotions and became very void, my choice, since what else could she do? She was so pained that didn't want to kept feeling anymore.
At this point I as a player was on my limit. This was the last chance I gave to the GM (for this period of time at least...) to redeem himself. He sent a player-npc (the npc of another PC) that S hated because he was rude and disgusting to try and talk her up to come back, but the instant she saw him in the island she asked him to go away, she kicked him out with magic, he came back with magic, and after some back and fort he went away.
GM talked angrily with me at this point, about that I wasn't giving him any room to bring S back.
"You could literally send a random, faceless NPC and ir would have been better than sending someone she despises".
In these years we had a lot of increassingly tense discussions about how he was narrating for himself rather than for others, and in this instance I said everything I tought. He always excused that S would reach "that point" eventually of being really powerful, and then she could do stuff. That the bits of personal lore that I got felt like crumbles while Gary had a banquet in the other table. I told him that I felt as he was masturbating his own ego and characters as the sole purpose of the game.
He tried to excuse that everything had a reason and this and that, but I wasn't buying anything and left the campaign.
And this could have ended there.
A year and a half later, GM reached out to me. He apologized for being "too harsh" and asked me to come back, that he wanted to change things.
GM is a very proud person. I valued a lot that he said sorry, and I was still a bit sad about S, so yeah...I gave him a second chance, motivated S a bit to leave the island and go around, still a void shell of herlself, acting "like the woman I used to be would".
For this time I was done with being enthusiastic. GM had put me in this spot, and I was also sick of investigating to discover what probably was gonna be more Gary background. If he was gonna change he could put some will on it. And my distrust proved to be right. I again got the same treatment of fighting and losing/winning with help wile npcs just went around soloing groups of enemies. He threw me some bones about how a big victory (with the help of two npcs he likes very much from my family) earned me the right to be OP, but in the end he retracted this because of bs amounting to "I can't give it to you now" and later "S said she would reach this by herself". I am too tired to argue anymore. S went around doing chores and ignoring the war to try and release her family from the curse, and the resolution was a bit random and unsatisfying with a NPC that I never saw just offering up his soul to "buy back" her freedom and remove her family's curse. Of course his soul was like ambrosia for Lucifer and the other 3 dudes that now were fused together for story stuff, so, yup, that's how S' family curse ended. With a random stranger that she never saw solving it in two seconds.
S went back to the war, with deadpan comments about "oh, so I guess now is when things go bad and someone appears to solve them?" that sadly, where mostly right. The ending was near and S was determined to just fucking win the war, murder the whole country (yeah, she was not nice anymore) and take some years to curse all the land so never could grew or live there again. The map was the same as the real onw with different names, and this country was where USA is, for an idea of the size. She was bitter, sad, desperate, and blamed the idiotic plans of the King and the people that followed them for ruining her life, just to not hate the whole world at least. DM celebrated her toxic anger and bitterness.
S got the chance of tossing the most dangerous island in the world with all its fauna on Gary's country. But GM didn't liked this idea, so an NPC that she never heard nor knew about talked to her...mentally, yeah, knowing exactly what was going on as always with this bullshit interventions, and telling that he was gonna release a rainbow beast if she did that. GM told me by chat that this would kill almost all of S' friends. S wouldn't want that...but as a player, I REALLY wanted to do this. There was no way they could keep up with the war with that happening. But S didn't do it, and I still regret it.
Fast forward. We are at the finale ladies and gentleman. If you have stuck with me until now, you will surely be rewarded with this bullshit ending.
S and her band endured an assault to their fortress, with giant mecha armors that made the wearer x100 times stronger or something like that. S was since long time, a Commander of the rebel army, and fought with her troops. She understood that they couldn't win against that shit armor, so he went with her reality warping to steal the blueprint of them, made small area of time-slowing, and put people to work on it while filling the gaps with her reality bending stuff. Armors get done, she and the stoic knight from the start get on, and eventually Gary comes in and S is like: just get on this armor and do your thing.
GM kills off in this fight the stoic knight and the funny thief, that was one of those npcs that S really apretiated. With the now 4 armors, S says to everyone in the funeral of the fallen: It's time to strike back. Mildly amusing, and S went full "I don't give a fuck about animal life" and fuelled her reality wrappinh stuff with animal lifes. She wasn't in for the cruelty but she considered that "if we eat and wear them, it's normal to use their lifes for this, too". This got her a cool moment of saving the king of the dragon city after giving a moral middle finger to the master while talking to the npcs and went in the lines of:
"So, they controlled the king and make us kill him. Are you dumb? It is obvious that now dragon country will not believe us and declare war on us. I fucking refuse"
And she revived him while sacrificing her cat familiar to do this deed. I started to imagine...hey, maybe after all these years, this is that moment when S gets celebrated a bit, it sounds cool to be a nacional hero or som-...
Haha no, a quick brindis and keep goin'. She recieved a dragon egg that was a cool detail, but I didn't get to enjoy it at all.
I am skipping over a whole other shitshow about Gary banging the Leviathan assassin (since his wife redhead is dead, this isn't cheating) and my "quest" to revive the redhead. This sounds cool except for 2 things: I went surrounded by Gary's npcs (pieces of himself with personality) that did the heavy lifting, and a mutual friend that played the whole campaign already disclosed to me that the armor stuff was gonna happen regardless of S' effort, and also redhead coming back to life.
And O.M.G. Even now I expected something, but hooo boy was I in for a shitshow. Now this is it, the real finale:
Gary decided that we would go on an important npc's ship.
S argued that wtf, don't take 30 (powerful) npcs and dmnpcs and instead take the whole army, but for some unclear reason this was a no-go. And the dragon country? They got their King kidnapped and controlled, no army from them? Oh, ok...
Well, what about our 4 unique in the world armor suits that where a turning point and feared in the whole world? Those were their triumph card, let's rock'em with those! Nope. We aren't taking it. Gary and all the characters just ignored S and didn't took the armors that costed her the lifes of the thief and the stoic knight, and a lot of effort.
S wanted to go in another instance before to the country, and was told that she was gonna insta die if she did. Now we are just sailing there, without protection, and in a ship...mind boggling. Also, in the way, the edgelord that killed the redhead appear to join them.
S saw fucking red. This prick (well, he was mind controlled or something) did all of that and now he comes with an attitude to be like "yeah whatever losers, i'll fight with you" trying to be cool.
As you can see, S' commander rank was shit. No one paid attention or heed her with the armors, the method, and now she was adamantly telling that she didn't want this prick here. She didn't care that "I was controlled", he didn't even said that he was sorry. Gary, that was S' best friend because well, she didn't linger around a lot of people and GM didn't put really a lot of interesting characters really, just ignored her request and let him stay. She travelled alone then, and arrived a bit late to the battlefield.
Upon arriving as she picked up, a single magistrate fucked everyone up, tping them in different places. This 30 guys had all a face, a name, and were very powerful, and this single prick just did that.
S (and I) was quite done with this stupid and moronic plan, and was pointing and thinking about how stupid and moronic was everything and why the fuck where they not using the armors or a better plan. It all seemed so staged and dumb that was unbearable.
DM got pissed finally because of his oh wow so impressive story was getting roasted and decided that S was gonna be randomly sent to the future before the final confrontation that she trained, suffered, and wanted to be and maybe, to die a good death on. This was the ending for me. DM offered me to play the continuation, that esencially is "war was won without you, whatever". I was so heartbroken and so was she. Gary and his redhead waifu just randomnly went and won against the King.
I just decided to play a bit, I had to make sure that S could curse the land as she wanted and maybe move on and finally rest. DM obviously didn't wanted this, so made it impossible as much as he could. This lasted very little because when tossing a cutting tornado from inside the fangs of a creature, directly to its internal organs, did 0 damage.
Me: "Excuse me, I want to get this right. I am using a tornado with solid cutting edges, directly from this open mouth, and in direct way to his insides, and I do no damage?"
GM: "That's right"
Me: "I'm sorry, this isn't working out. I quit the campaign"
Yes, even I, the dumb person that wanted an ending and endured around 7 years of bullshit, was done. He argued a bit but I was having none of it, and also quitted another campaign that he was gonna start. I feel like he just wanted to keep me playing with excuses, and I usually argued to myself that after all the time here, I needed to make it worth... not anymore.
This was S' story, and my most traumatizing roleplay journey, that left me scarred and kinda wary of other DMs. Today I imagine that she's in a dark place, hating the world where she was born, full of rude "good guys" and edgy characters that will always be better than her, can read her mind with ease, have always a solution for everything... She's waiting. Looking to a little light far away, that it's my hope for someday pick her up in another campaign, with another master, and give her all the healing and closure that she needs.
As for myself, I am playing since a year and something know a similar campaign (anime +homebrew setting) with a mutual friend that is an AMAZING GM and is helping me get past the trauma and since I met him because of this experience, I told myself that it was all worth it because God do I love each second of the Amazing GM's campaign. Sadly, this GM also played S' campaign and has his own stories to share. At least now we can talk about that and roast him together in our chats for all of his bullshit.
I currently barely talk to S' GM because he also has been devolving into a quite mysoginistic personality (I'm a girl).
Bonus Round: Random bullshit go! (loose fragments of dumbness)
GM: "You should feel good about your 10 year son being so powerful that he almost beat you!"
GM: "You hear from your room Gary and Redhead's moans, they are really going at it!"
GM: "Your military rank doesn't apply if Gary is not nearby, you can't ask them to give you the armors"
GM: "I don't 'masturbate' my characters. I make love to them *laughs*"
GM: "Why is S being so emo!?"
GM: "I'm sorry for that ending but I was frustrated with your attitude"
GM: "I dont gift anything, and when I played this campaign I earned all by myself"
GM: "If you don't want to get pregnant again you need to create an anticonceptive spell"
GM: "I know that your ability that I approved says you can do this, but now it doesn't do that"
GM: "So what, did you expected to be celebrated for saving the king?"
Me: "Why the fuck everybody always knows when I lie and what I think?"
submitted by Ieriz to rpghorrorstories [link] [comments]

Monstrous, magical, racist, possibly closeted, delusion ex-boss

I have never been on Reddit before, but wanted to share this story somewhere. I don't know if this is the best place to put it, so let me know what makes sense. This is super long, but I'm writing this is actually really therapeutic for me! So hopefully someone finds it interesting.
TLDR: Horrible boss sexually harasses me, violates my privacy, and makes my life hell for 5 months until threatening my pay. I quit, he fired me for quitting. Then he continued to harass me for 1.5 years after, asking for me to come back, be friends, or just add him on social media. I get advice from police, let him know what the consequences will be for his advances, and he finally fucks off.
Anyways, now for the story.
I moved to the Twin Cities in 2017 and was bumming in a friend's living room for several months while job hunting. I needed to nail down a job quickly because the lease is ending and we want to get a place with more than one bedroom. I've been a barista in the past, so I figure that should be an easy job to get on short notice.
I get a quick response from a place called La Fusion Cafe. I absolutely hate the name, but what the hell. I show up for the interview and meet the owner, who I will call Benny. Benny is an immigrant from Kenya who worked as a chef in some crazy places around the world. (Like Dubai, apparently?) He makes good food, but doesn't know how to run the coffee portion of the business. Since I had about 2 years of barista experience, that was enough for him to decide he wanted me to come in and be in charge of that. Which sounds awesome! I love the idea of having that agency.
Two red flags I partially ignored: first, he says that for the work of managing and settings things up, I'll get $15/hr + tips (so about $22/hr), but does not want to pay this at the start. He says it will kick in after 6 months, but won't put that in writing. And second, he immediately starts complaining about the "dedication and commitment" of past employees and says he doesn't know if he can trust me yet. In the interview. Which is a weird time to do that.
I say okay and start the following week. I lasted 5 months and got fired for quitting. I think it's best told as a series of micro-stories. Here's some of what happened:
​
There is way more, but I can't remember it all off the top of my head and frankly, this post is getting loooong. By the end of Friday, week 2, I was a nervous wreck from all the sexual questions + touching and grabbing, and my kind roommate took me biking to grab some whisky so I could drink my nerves away and think.
When I came back on Monday, I think I exuded enough negative energy that he left me mostly alone. But before I left I sat him down and gave him a lecture: everything he had done was completely out of line, and he wasn't allowed to touch me or ask me personal questions anymore. He was shocked that he had done anything wrong and was apologetic: apparently I was the first person ever to tell him what "consent" was. He genuinely found the concept alien.
It only took one day for him to justify the way he treated me, saying he didn't know I was so "delicate" and "sensitive". That long list up there? Most of that happened after I had this talk. I only stayed because I was poor and depressed and found the job market very unforgiving. This job was sapping my life force and I didn't have energy to be alive outside of it.
​
Things between us became tense over time (no surprise there), and then one day he started noticing a discrepancy in the count of the cash in the register. I've counted down registers for a while, and I am usually perfect down to the penny. But this was off by ~$20/day for roughly a week. He claimed I was either losing the money or stealing it. I said neither was true, and offered to prove it by being the exclusive person to handle the register from store open to when I clocked out. He took this as me blaming him for the loss in money. (Which is technically true, I guess? But he also had trouble with math and computers in general. Like maybe me, the person who set up your entire digital POS system is less likely to make a mistake than you, the person who can't keep track of milk stock properly.)
He told me there was nothing I could do that would prove to him it wasn't me, so he told me that until the money stopped disappearing, he was going to extract it from my paycheck.
​
I have no idea if this is illegal or not (sounds like it is!) but I just went home that Friday evening fuming. Until I was hit with a moment of clarity: what the fuck was I still doing there? It was killing me, and now he threatened literally the only thing keeping me there: the money!
So I sent him a text: since I cannot prove it wasn't me and I literally cannot afford to stay, this is my two weeks notice.
He texted back: hey, there's been some kind of glitch - it looks like you tried to send me a text??? It didn't come through.
I saw that my text had in fact been delivered, so I knew he was lying and being weird again. It was late at night, so I decided to email him the next morning.
​
When I go to my email the next morning, I have an email from him already saying I've been fired. He says that I was lazy, bad at my job, and had a poor attitude. (He had been gushing over my skills, demeaner, work ethic, etc, for 5 months. Some of it was a little over the top. ) He back dated the letter to Thursday, the day before I put in my two weeks notice.
I'm sorry to say I didn't gouge him on unemployment, even though I easily could have I think. But I was just way too happy to be free of him! A felt a weight come off my chest, got on the job hunt, and had a boring but stable job at Wells Fargo within two weeks. I was kind of sad I didn't get to say goodbye to the regulars I knew, but at least it was over.
BUT IT WASN'T OVER.
Three weeks later, he texts me. He said we both made mistakes, but he wishes I would come see him again. That maybe we could work together again? Maybe we could be close friends again? I pointed out that he trashed my mental state for 5 months, sexually harassed me, threatened my pay, illegally fired me and back-dated the letter, and that I had a new job now. I asked him to use his "magical intuition" and try to figure out if I ever wanted to see him again. He told me I hurt his feelings, and that he hoped that hurting his feelings would finally make me happy. (It did.)
It was so weird, it felt like he was reacting to a bad breakup. "Give me another chance, baby! I'll be different this time!"
BUT IT STILL DIDN'T END
I had told him while working there I didn't want him on social media. A few months after I quit / got fired, he sends me a request on Facebook. I rejected it and blocked that account.
AND IT STILL DIDN'T STOP
A few weeks later, he sends me a business-like text saying he needs new menu boards and asks when I can come in to work on them, absolutely no recognition that it was a weird thing to ask out of the blue considering the situation.
I don't respond.
AND IT STILL CONTINUED
He creates a new Facebook account with an alias name and tries to add me. I block that account and lock down the security settings on my Facebook.
AND THEN IT BECAME WORSE
I needed documents from him at tax season, but he didn't want to mail them to me. He wanted me to get them from him in person so we could talk. I called the IRS and found out he HAD to get them to me or face a fine. After I let him know this, he finally stopped holding my tax documents hostage and mailed them to me.
AND THIS MOTHERFUCKER DIDN'T GIVE UP
At this point in the story it's been roughly 1.5 years since I quit - sometimes I don't even think about him! I get a notification: he's following me on Instagram, which is my happy place where I post small sketches. I'm thoroughly creeped out and feel threatened: it's been so long and he is STILL obsessing over me, he has my address, and now he's trespassed on my Instagram, which is sacred ground.
I decide to overreact and elevate things to DEFCON 1: I go to the police station and ask what I can do. Obviously they can't do much, but they tell me that if he bothers me online, I can get a restraining order. And if he ever tries to see me in person they said to call them immediately.
I send him a very formal email letting him know what the police told me. (Emphasized that I called the police, he didn't have to know they wouldn't actually do much.) I let him know all of the charges I could levy against him if he didn't fuck off: sexual harassment, docking my pay and firing me the way he did, etc. I told him the only suitable email response I would accept was an acknowledgement of the hellfire I would rain on him if he didn't disappear from my life.
And then a beautiful thing happened: his requests disappeared, he never replied, and I never heard from him again.
I know it sounds dramatic, but it felt like I stabbed the final horcrux that was Benny and I just got to watch as little bits of him disintegrated and silently drifted into the atmosphere.
​
It wasn't all bad: I learned a lot. I learned how to stand up for myself. I experienced what women go through all the time with creepy bosses + power dynamics. I learned how to fight for what I deserve. It gave me an understanding of the way in which poverty drowns you and keeps your head submerged in shitty situations.
But I also gained a wild story to tell people. I hope you enjoyed.
submitted by Penyeah to stories [link] [comments]

Leŋwaŋda - making a new international aux lang

This is a new project of mine, and my first real conlang attempt. Would love to hear any thoughts, feedback, advice on anything here.
EDIT: New changes include simpler vowels, getting rid of /ə/ /ʊ/ /ɪ/ and /e/, and no longer using macrons. Stress rules also added
Leŋwaŋda xi leŋo ma fasi kon paldamos an leŋ-niamos no leŋos mejora no dunio...
Lengwangda is a language I am making with words and grammar from major languages of the world...
The goal is to find/create words that have cognates in multiple languages (especially from distantly related languages). The purpose is to have a language that speakers of many different unrelated languages could all notice at least something familiar to them. So it's kind of like Lidepla (Lingwa de Planeta) but as far as I am aware that has no African language representation and very little Southeast Asian language representation. Also trying to make very easy rules.
I have no formal linguistic training and have never attempted a conlang before, but I speak a few languages besides English (French, Mandinka, Wolof) and have studied linguistics on my own and in anthro classes back in college.
Nes viri ! ~ Let's go
Vowels and special characters
Aa - /ä/ Ee - /ɛ/ Ii - /i/ Oo - /o/ Uu -
Ññ - /ɲ/ Ŋŋ - /ŋ/ Xx - /ʃ/ Cc - /tʃ/
​
It uses the following 32 languages from 11 different language families. They are not listed here in any order, but they almost all come from the Wikipedia page "List of languages by total number of speakers", only ones not from that list that I am using are Yoruba and Igbo (Volta-Niger branch), just to have more Niger-Congo representation beyond Swahili (Bantu branch), they are also among the largest African languages, both have over 40 million estimated speakers when you include L2 speakers. Family and language names (endonyms) listed here are written with Leŋwaŋda orthography, but afterwards I will use the English spellings when showing the etymologies.
  1. Indo-Yeropien - Inglix, Doic, Español, Portuges, Franse, Italiano, Ruski, Hindi, Baŋla, Urdu, Pajabi, Gujarati, Marathi, Farsi
  2. Dravidien - Telugu, Tamil, Kanada
  3. Turkik - Turkxe
  4. Afro-Asiatik - Arabia, Amariña, Hausa
  5. Nixer-Kongo - Kiswahil, Igbo, Yoruba
  6. Austronixen - Basa Indonesia, Basa Jawa, Pilipino
  7. Austro-Aisiatik - Teŋ Viet
  8. Kra–Dai - Tai
  9. Sinitik - Xoŋwen
  10. Japonik - Nihongo
  11. Koreanik - Hangugo
Basic grammar notes.
There are no definite/indefinite articles.
Verbs end in " i ", Nouns end in “o”, and Adjectives end in “a"
Stress is on the penultimate syllable. If the word stem (before the part of speech marker vowel) ends in a vowel, the part of speech marker is not counted towards the syllables.
Stress examples
Kirapeli = kir ' a ' pel ' i
Dunio = dun ' i ' o
Lunilao = lu ' ni ' la ' o
Word order is SVO. Descriptive adjectives come after nouns, while other kinds of adjectives and adverbs have some flexibility in positioning. A noun modified by a descriptive adjective will sometimes form a compound word, and the noun marker “o” is dropped. The name of the language is an example of this: Leŋo (language) + Waŋda (vast) becomes Leŋwaŋda (vast language).

VOCAB

SUBJECT/OBJECT PRONOUNS
Ma - I, me Nes - We, us
Ta - You Ves - You (pl.)
Eta - He/She/It, Him/HeIt Etes - They, them
​
VERBS
Fasi - To do, to make [Latin : facere]
Xi - To be [Chinese : 是 shì - it] (stem form xu since without the i it is one letter, the addition of an ending "u" applies to all difficult to pronounce word stems)
Havi - To have [English : have, French : avoir, Romanian : avea]
Viri - To go [Spanish/Portuguese : ir]
Pali - To speak [French : parler]
Kitabi - To write [Semitic : k-t-b]
Bactali - To read [Indonesian : baca, Russian : читать chitat', French : lire]
Pikai - To cook [Swahili : pika]
Xudori - To sleep [Chinese : 睡觉 Shuìjiào, Latin : dormio]
Fini - To finish [Latin : finio]
Ajoi - To join, to connect [English : join]
Apandai - To ascend, to climb [Swahili : panda, English : up, English : ascend] /ɐʔpändaɪ/
Depandai - To set, to descend, to come down
Kirapeli - To call, to name [French : appeler, Hausa : kira]
Givdoni - To give [Hindi : देना dena, English : give, Latin : dare]
Kwajujui - To ask, to question [English : question, Igbo : ajụjụ]
​
NOUNS
Leŋo - Language, Tongue [French : langue]
Paldamo - Word, Speech [Telugu : padaṁ, Spanish : palabra]
Kitabo - Book [Semitic : k-t-b]
Niamo - Rule, Law [Hindi : नियम niyam]
Leŋ-niamo - Grammar
Waktempo - Time [Arabic : وَقْت‎ waqt, Latin : tempus]
Leŋ-waktempo - Tense
Sasao - The present [Swahili : sasa]
Paskako - The past [Japanese : 過去 kako, English : past]
Virxio - The future (vir + xi + o - “the going to be”)
Kwajujuo - Question [English : question, Igbo : ajụjụ]
​
Ipo - Location, position [Yoruba : ipo, English : position]
Domo - Home, house [Russian : дом, Latin : domus]
Boko - Mouth, lid, entrance [Latin : bucca]
Dom-boko - Gate, entryway, front door [compound word domo+boko]
Odao - Room [Turkish : oda]
​
Soltayo - Sun [Latin : solis, Japanese : 太陽 Taiyō]
Lunilao - Moon, month [Latin : lunis, Tamil : நிலா Nilā]
Starelo - Star [English : star, Hindi : तारा taara, Italian : stella]
Skaixo - Sky [English : sky, Hindi; आकाश aakaash]
Natiumo - Country, nation [Tamil - நாடு Nāṭu, English : nation]
Dunio - World [Arabic : دنيا dunia]
Butero - Land, earth, ground [Hindi/Sanskrit : भू bhū, Latin : terra]
Narak-ciogo - Hell [Hindi : नरक narak, Korean : 지옥 jiog]
Orunswargo - Heaven [Yoruba : ọrun, Hindi : स्वर्ग svarg]
Tanro - God [Turkish : tanrı]
Godevao - God [English : God, Hindi : देव deva]
Evren-ujuo - Universe, cosmos [Turkish : evren, Korean : 우주 uju]
Hulu-moduo - All, everything [Amharic : ሁሉም hulumi, Korean : 모두 modu]
Waŋdo - Vastness [from the adjective waŋda]
​
Famiyalio - Family [Hausa : iyali, Latin : familia]
Namao - Mother, Mom [near-universal n/m sounds for mother]
Bapao - Father, Dad [near-universal b/p sounds for father]
Toto - Child [Swahili : mtoto]
Namo - Name
Vivlafio - Life, health [Latin : vita, Hausa : lafiya]
Habario - News [Arabic : ḵ-b-r, Swahili : Habari]
Eta - He/She/It [Russian : Это - it, Chinese : 它 Tā - he/she/it, English : it]
Ete - They [Russian : Это, Marathi : ते Tē]
Ki - That, which [French : qui]
Kis - These
​
Adjectives, Adverbs, Prepositions, Articles, Etc
Fasila - Easy [Latin : facilis]
Nai-fasila - Difficult
Plataga - Flat [Filipino : patag, Latin : planus]
Dulsamaita - Sweet [Latin : dulcis, Japanese : 甘い Amai, Hindi : मिठाई mithaee]
Gutomgolta - Hungry [Filipino : gutom, Russian : голод golod]
Temtama -Full [Thai : เต็ม Tĕm, Turkish : tam]
Vivlafia - Well, healthy [Latin : vita, Hausa : lafiya]
Nai-vivlafia - Unwell
Gonjwajara - Sick [Swahili : gonjwa, Marathi : आजार Ājāra]
Sasa - Now [Swahili : sasa]
Paskakoa - Before [Japanese : 過去 kako]
Virxia - Later [vir + xi + a]
​
Kwajuju-paldamos (Question words)
Kwa - What [Romance : que, Hindi : क्या kya]
Kwempo / Kwa-tempo -When (what time)
Kwaipo / Kwa-ipo - Where [kwa + ipo] (what place)
Kim - Who [Turkish : kim, French : qui]
Kakese - How [Russian : как kak, Hindi : कैसे? kaise]
Por-kwa - Why [por + kwam] (for what)
​
​
Leŋ-waktempos (Tenses)
SASAO - Present (Simple Present, Habitual, and Present Progressive)
Verb in infinitive form
Ma pikai hasupo - I cook soup / I am cooking soup
​
PASKAKO - Past (Simple Past)
Verb ending i becomes e
“Nes xe totos” - We were children
“Ves vire ala” - You went there
​
VIRXIO - Future (Simple Future)
Stem form of Viri - To Go (vir) + infinitive form of 2nd verb
“Ma vir-ajoi etes” - I will join them / I am going to join them
​
PASKAKO NAI-FINIA - Unfinished Past (Past Imperfect)
Past form of Xi - To Be (xe) + verb stem + iŋ
“Eta xe xudoriŋ” - He was sleeping
“Ma xe xiŋ nai-fasila - I was being difficult
​
PASKAKO FINIA - Finished Past (Past Perfect)
Past form of Have (have) + past form of 2nd verb
“Eta have kitabe kitabo” - He had written a book
​
SASA-PASKAKO FINIA - Past-Present Perfect (Present Perfect)
Past form of Havi (have) + infinitive (present) form of 2nd verb
“Ta have viri ki toto?” - Have you seen that child?
​
SASA-PASKAKO NAI-FINIA - Past-Present Unfinished (Present Perfect Progressive)
Stem form of Havi (Hav) + verb stem + iŋ
Ta hav-viriŋ habario? - Have you been seeing the news?
​
VIRXIO FINIA - Future Finished (Future Perfect)
Virhav (go-have) + past form of verb
Ta virhav fine? - Will you have finished?
​
Imperative
Stem form of verb at the beginning of the sentence
Givdon ama ta namo? - Give me your name?
Xu vivlafia - Be well!
​
So that is most of what I have so far! Just some extra vocab I left out here since it's already a pretty long post. Let me know what you think! Any tips on organization or anything else also would be appreciated. Thanks.
submitted by PherJVv to conlangs [link] [comments]

Operation Goatfuck: Failing to Plan then Planning for Failure (LONG)

Everyone who has ever served in the military probably has countless stories of fuckups, failures, and general disasters they've been drug into (or were responsible for). Stories like that are a dime-a-dozen, but occasionally, you get roped into something so monumentally stupid it almost deserves a medal for exceptional fuckery. This is one of those stories.
Background
In 2012, I was deployed to Afghanistan as the chipper, young Platoon Leader for a Sapper platoon. Unlike basically every other Sapper platoon in the country (which were stuck doing route clearance), mine got the lucky assignment of actually doing real Sapper missions. We were attached to an understrength Infantry company off in a forgotten corner of RC-South. We got to patrol as Infantry, and we were also tasked to provide heavy demo support to a Special Forces ODA in our area, so we even got to to blow shit up like Sappers. It was dirty, exhausting, and terrifying work, but it was a total blast.
Halfway through the deployment, my CO gave me a call and gave me the good news/bad news. The bad news was that my PL time was up, and he had to give my Sapper platoon to a new LT. The good news was that he was giving me another platoon, the company's Mobility Support Platoon (a mix of Sappers, bridgers, and equipment operators). There was also the other, implied bad news: My new platoon was working as route clearance, meaning that I would be trading in my exciting doorkicker job for slow mounted patrols and trying not to fall asleep.
I've said that term a few times now: "Route Clearance". What the hell is it? Well, in short, route clearance was the US military's answer to IEDs. Instead of patrolling the population of towns and villages, engineer platoons were reorganized into Route Clearance Platoons (RCPs) that would patrol the roads themselves. The basic job was to roll down roads very slowly, with a combination of specialized equipment like vehicle-mounted ground-penetrating radar, high-powered optics, robots, mine rollers, and find and remove all the IEDs. Creeping slowly along at 2-3 kph, the hardest part of the job was staying awake. In route clearance, you find 100% of IEDs, but you usually only find about 50-80% the "easy way" and you find the rest the "hard way".
The new platoon I fell in with were a great bunch of Soldiers though. All the Soldiers were likeable, and my NCOs were experienced. We worked together well, and I knew that I could trust them to accomplish even the hardest tasks, and to do so safely. My platoon and another Sapper platoon from my company were attached to a Missouri National Guard company as a makeshift Route Clearance company. They were a good bunch of folks, but largely inexperienced, and that inexperience would come back to haunt us all.
Prelude to Operation Goatfuck
If you were to survey RC-South in 2012, you'd find that there were basically two kinds of bases spread around the region. Most of the larger Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) and smaller Combat Outposts (COPs) were located directly on major routes that were often paved and regularly patrolled by route clearance, but a small subset of bases were located out in the sticks. These bases were located well off any paved road, were resupplied almost entirely by air, and were usually the home of just a single platoon, an ODA, or Security Force Assistance Team.
As US forces began to drawdown and consolidate bases in 2012 though, these small, isolated bases were the first to go. Even though they were largely resupplied by air, the bases themselves were often chock full of heavy equipment, vehicles, and other nonsense that could only go in or out by road. Tiny, heavily-contested bases tucked dozens of kilometers away from main roads suddenly saw the need for large convoys to reach them, deconstruct them, and then drive out. These bases were a real challenge for route clearance; not only were the roads often little more than goat trails, but the Taliban had had literal years to block off and litter many of these roads with IEDs.
One of these bases slated for closure was a Special Forces base in the Khakrez District. Tucked away behind 30 km of unpatrolled, uncleared roads (20 km of which weren't even monitored by ISR), and in the midst of a hotly contested region, this base was going to be an especially difficult challenge.
Failing to Plan
It didn't take long for the mission to come down the pipeline. The base was closing, and route clearance was being requested to clear the road and escort 45 (!!!) flatbeds into the COP, help with deconstructing it, and then escorting the flatbeds back out.
This was a HUGE mission. Everything about it was challenging:
Since we were the only platoon with experience clearing roads like this (and on this road in particular), we assumed we'd be the ones stuck with it. As soon as I heard about it, I sat down with my squad leaders and we drafted a plan. It would be a challenge, but it was still entirely possible with the right help.
In a nutshell, the plan was that we would need another RCP attached to us (for the extra Huskies and the extra gun trucks for convoy security), along with a bulldozer, a fuel tanker, and a third platoon of whatever just to monitor the road at the midway point to prevent the Taliban from emplacing behind us. We figured we could clear the road in three parts: the first 10 km that we were familiar with along with regrading the road day 1, clearing the next 10 km and establishing two VDOs for the third platoon and one of the RCPs to watch the road on day 2 (we'd leave the tanker here since they'd have to be there for several days), clearing the rest of the way on day 3, then closing down the base, and returning down the road which would still hopefully be clear thanks to the third platoon and the RCP watching it behind us. It was difficult but doable.
When I came back to the command post just a couple hours later with the plan, I was instead surprised to learn that we weren't the ones assigned to the mission. Instead, the least experienced platoon in the company, First Platoon, had been assigned to cut their teeth on this mission. Their "plan" was shocking to say the least. They planned to do the mission entirely unassisted, clearing the way to the COP in a single day (with no dozer on the first 10 km), deconstructing the base in no more than two days, and then clearing their way back out in a single day.
I was happy to not be the ones doing a difficult and dangerous mission, but I was still concerned to see it being treated with such a cavalier attitude. I raised my concerns and talked through my platoon's plan, explaining to the CO and 1st PLT PL why they'd need to do something at least vaguely similar, but my concerns were ultimately dismissed. 1st Platoon, which had largely only patrolled paved and safe roads up to this point, argued that they could average 3-5 kph at least and they doubted that there would be more than a couple IEDs on the entire route.
A couple days later, they stepped off on Operation Goatfuck...
Operation Goatfuck Phase 1
The day that 1st Platoon finally got rolling was a maintenance day for my platoon, so I got to see the whole thing from inside the command post.
Initially, things seemed to go well. There were a couple red flags - some empty flatbeds got stuck on the first 10 km and had to be helped by wreckers, and the clearance was going a bit slower than planned - but overall, it looked like my doomsaying had been for nothing. By the time they reached the halfway mark, 1st Platoon hadn't even encountered a single IED. I ended up leaving the CP in the afternoon to check on maintenance, and figured I'd check back in around chow time and eat some crow for all my whining.
That is, of course, when things started to go wrong.
When I finally circled back around dinner time though, the mood in the CP had shifted. 1st Platoon had struck an IED, losing one of their Huskies, not long after I left and their progress had been slower since then. The sun was starting to set, there was over 10 km left to go, and you can't really do route clearance as effectively at night (because the Mk 1 eyeball is still your best search asset).
This still didn't seem like a big problem to me. As it turns out, 1st Platoon had managed to clear all the way to my suggested VDO location (the day 2 spot) in just the first day. I suggested that they could simply circle the wagons in that spot like I originally planned, and continue clearance the next morning. That's when I got the next shocker: 1st Platoon couldn't do that because they had been so confident in a one-day clearance they didn't even have a 3-day-of-supply (the standard) of food and water on their trucks. They literally couldn't stop overnight because they only had supplies for a single day. Well, shit.
So 1st Platoon kept up clearing as the sun set, and it wasn't long before they found their second IED... the hard way. Now they were out both their Huskies and it was too dark to see outside of their headlights. It was clear at this point that they were no longer mission capable, but without supplies or the ability to rapidly resupply them, they had to either push forward or turn around. They chose to push forward, and they now had 10 km of uncleared, hostile road ahead of them.
Lacking any actual search assets, they were now forced to continue by only proofing the road (e.g. mine rollers). Supplementing their rollers, they briefed the CP that they were also shooting at suspicious parts of the road with their Mk19 grenade launcher and they would be using APOBS to clear the wadis. When that message came in, I expected to watch the CO's face turn red and see him fire off a furious message in response. APOBS is only good for clearing small foot paths of anti-personnel mines, not clearing vehicle-width paths of deep buried explosives, and shooting IEDs with a Mk19 is actually more likely to just make them more dangerous instead of blowing them up. Instead of getting angry though, the CO just acknowledged the message, apparently resigned to the belief that it was their only option. Not wanting to get into a screaming match with everyone in the CP, I walked out, planning to return after dinner.
Now, it was time for things to get even worse.
When I returned a while later, it was immediately clear how wrong things had gotten. The radio operator in the CP was in the middle of calling in a 9-line MEDEVAC request. The platoon leader and a squad leader had both been seriously injured. They had been trying to fire an APOBS to clear a wadi, when they struck an IED while dismounted. Apparently, the place they were standing had previously been "cleared" by firing the Mk19 at it. It was like every single mistake they made was coming together in a horrifying shitstorm. (To his credit, the PL had at least some understanding of how dangerous what they were doing was and had taken it on himself to be the one to dismount and fire the APOBS in order to protect his soldiers)
When dustoff finished rescuing the two of them (they both lived, but I think one lost his legs), the platoon was still about 3 km from the COP and totally out of options. Lacking anything else they could do, they crossed their fingers and just drove the rest of the way flat out. For once, their luck held, and the last few kilometers were clear. They had made it to the base, but now they were stuck there.
Planning for Failure
Everything had gone to total shit with the first plan, and every single problem that I brought up had come to pass. Surely, now was the time to reconsider my plan, wrangle the resources, and put it into action, right?
When I think about what happened next, I try to put myself in the position of my CO. Things had totally gone to shit with the first "plan", and he had a platoon stuck in the middle of nowhere. Compounding that, he had previously made planning decisions based on being down a single platoon for just four days, and commited some of his other platoons to other missions scheduled within just days time. On top of that, he had his regular route clearance requirements on standard roads, and he was still expected to keep those clear. Now he had some PL telling him that he needed to scrub all other non-standard missions for the next two weeks and task two platoons (committing 3 of his 4 platoons) with unfucking the original mission. I could see how that could be hard to accept.
Which is why he didn't accept it. Instead, he went looking for options, and the 3rd Platoon leader was offering one. Third Platoon had the only other PL and platoon with about as much experience as my own (they were the Sapper platoon from my original company), and he was a little more optimistic than me. Since the first ~15 km had been IED free and were now cleared, he felt that it wasn't unreasonable to believe the odds of the road being heavily relaced with IEDs was low. He explained to the CO that if he could get my platoon attached to his own, he could clear the way to the base in two days (stopping at the 10 km point after the first day), help deconstruct it in 2-3 days, and then clear their way out in one day. This would address what he saw as the only two problems of the first plan, attempting a one-day clearance and only having two Huskies. The new plan would still be painful for the operational schedule, but it wouldn't turn things on their head as much as my plan did. The CO eagerly agreed to 3rd Platoon's new plan, and I went off to get my platoon ready to leave the next morning.
Stalking back to my meet with my NCOs, I informed them of the new plan, and they were just as shocked as I was. Now that the Taliban knew we had a convoy in the base, they'd know it would have to leave at some point, and we expected the road to be chock full with IEDs. It was clear that even if Third Platoon's plan would have worked at some point, it was now going to be too little too late.
We sat down, discussed things, and then I suggested a new plan for us: We would run the mission with 3rd, but we would plan for it to fail. We would make sure that as a platoon, we had everything we needed on hand to put our original plan into place, if everything fell apart a second time. That night, we got things ready. I requested permission to bring along a tanker; the CO didn't see the need, but he finally caved on that just to shut me up. Even better, there was a FOB in the Khakrez we needed to stop at before starting the mission, and we could borrow their bulldozer. In place of the other RCP we originally planned to secure the second VDO, we would plan on taking that role ourselves, and all our trucks loaded up with 10+ days of food and water. Without the additional third platoon to monitor the road from the second VDO, we also came up with a plan to cover down on this deficiency by kicking out OPs every night.
Now, we were ready to fail.
Meeting the World's Dumbest Captain
Some of you reading this probably think that my CO is pretty dumb right about now. To be fair, I was thinking the same thing at the time. Realistically though, he was a solid commander and a good guy who had just made a couple errors in judgment. I can't say the same for the next captain in this story; we'll call him "King Idiot".
See, before we actually even start the clearance to the Special Forces COP, we actually had to clear our way to another FOB first. This FOB set in a more accessible part of the Khakrez, but still out of the way, was nominally in charge of supporting all the Special Forces COPs in the district. The route to that FOB was one that could be dangerous (3rd Platoon had suffered a KIA there a couple months earlier), but it was generally much easier and not nearly as challenging as the longer clearance that would follow.
Leaving that FOB, you can then visualize the road in three sections. The first 10 km was that patch of road that we expected to need the dozer on. This section of road could be observed via optics from the FOB (meaning it would be relatively IED free), and at the end it met in a T-junction with roads going north and south. The southern path led to a different Special Forces COP (call this "Blimp Base") and the northern path went the remaining 20 km to the COP we were trying to close. Of the remaining 20 km, the first 10 km were on a winding hill/mountain road and the last 10 km were through a wide valley filled with poppy farms.
As we were approaching the FOB on our clearance towards it, I inspected our BFT 2 (a live satellite map of all the friendly vehicles and positions) to see what lay ahead. I was surprised to see that a large convoy including a bunch of loaded flatbeds was just leaving the FOB for Blimp Base. Apparently, Blimp Base was getting a PTDS - a giant blimp with high-powered optics for observing the area around it - installed and the convoy was bringing in the blimp, its equipment, and literally tons of helium for it.
Calling ahead to the FOB, I let them know that the convoy probably would not be able to transition the entire 10 km to the T-junction to Blimp Base. I offered to drive ahead a little ways and bring their dozer up to start regrading the road. We'd need to do it at some point anyway, and now was just as good as any other time.
That's when I first heard King Idiot. King Idiot, the Battle Captain in charge of the area, came over the radio from the FOB to inform me that the road was fine, and I wouldn't need to do that. This wasn't really a big deal at this point, we were almost at the FOB and the convoy was almost to the point where they'd be stuck, so I figured we could just get to the FOB and it might be easier to explain in person.
When we rolled into the FOB, I went straight for the Tactical Operations Center (TOC) where I knew I would find the Battle Captain, King Idiot. At this point, I didn't know he was an idiot, so I explained that we were engineers, my Platoon Sergeant was a horizontal engineer (a road-building style of engineer), that he had already reconed that exact route about a month prior, and that he had assessed that the flatbeds headed for Blimp Base wouldn't be able to reach it without some roadwork being done. King Idiot then explained to me that I was wrong, that the trucks could travel over the 10 km stretch, and that they in fact already had.
Sounds like I have some egg on my face now, right? Well, I would have if they didn't have a giant projector screen with the BFT 2 view directly adjacent to the two of us. I remember just looking at him and looking at the BFT 2 showing that he was clearly wrong and that the trucks were kilometers away from where he thought they were. It was like I was in the Twilight Zone. Here I was looking at a six foot tall projection of the local map showing the location of the trucks, and the other man standing in front of it was arguing that they were in a totally different place.
I was so flabberghasted that I tried to respectfully argue with him for a bit. Little did I know that not only was King Idiot an idiot, but he was a petty one as well. As I tried to explain to him what we could literally see right in front of us, he got angrier and angrier, before finally playing his trump card. He told me that I couldn't use the dozer at all any longer, and then ordered me out of his TOC.
I couldn't believe what had just happened, but it was already late, I was tired, and I knew we would be stepping off in just a few more hours on a very lengthy mission. I decided to deal with the dozer problem later, returned to the motor pool, and fell asleep in my MRAP.
Three hours later, I get woken up. "Sir. Sir? ... Hi sir, sorry to wake you, but CPT King Idiot wants you in the TOC."
I'm still dog tired, but not really in a position to argue so I throw my boots back on and trudge over there. When I get in, King Idiot gestures to the projection of the BFT 2 on the wall. Sure enough it shows the convoy of trucks still in the middle of the 10 km stretch. Without even a hint of self-awareness or irony, King Idiot starts explaining to me, "LT, it seems as though the trucks in the convoy to Blimp Base can't make it past this point in the road. Tomorrow morning when your platoon leaves, you need to take that dozer with you and fix the road so that they can get past. Do you understand me?"
If I didn't feel like I was on a prank show before then, I definitely did in that moment. I was expecting to be the first person to ever get Punk'd in Afghanistan. I just nodded my head, gave him a "yes, sir", and went back to get another hour of sleep. In the end, reality had won the day, but this would not be the end of King Idiot.
Operation Goatfuck Phase 2
Just a few hours later, and we were on the road for the second attempt at Operation Goatfuck. Just like the first attempt, things went pretty well on the first 10 km. The dozer worked like a charm, and we were able to regrade the road just right to get the trucks past. Without water trucks and compaction, it would fall apart quick, but it was good enough to do a down and dirty job.
We rested the night at the T-junction, and then set off bright and early on 3rd Platoon's planned 20 km clearance. Unlike the first time though, there was no making it to the halfway point easily. This time, the Taliban were ready for us. We started finding and hitting IEDs almost immediately. By the time we had gone 5 km, we were already down two of our four Huskies, and we were travelling far too slow to reach the COP that evening.
It was at this point that the 3rd Platoon PL could see the preemptive writing on the wall. The prudent move would have been to stop and reassess the plan at this point, but if we'd done that, would this have been Operation Goatfuck? Nope, instead, he decides to turn to the same technique as 1st Platoon had used and begins having his gun trucks simply fire at suspicious points on the road.
Unlike the first time though, this time I was there, and I was already filled with enough anger and "I told you so" energy from the last few days to make me burst. The minute I heard what was going on ahead, I stopped my platoon and radioed ahead. Orders or no, I was not going to proceed down a road that wasn't actually being cleared, and that they were simply shooting more explosives into. That was doubly true because I had a non-mine-protected dozer and tanker in my convoy. After a little arguing and lot of me threatening to message higher and throw everyone under the bus, 3rd PLT's PL relented and returned to actually doing their job, route clearance.
Clearance continued, but so did the problems. Remember, an 80% find rate would be absolutely top tier for RC-South. As you can imagine though, in these conditions, we weren't going to be hitting those kinds of numbers. We were going 50/50, find one, hit one, and every single hit was knocking out a Husky. By the time we rounded the bend on the second 10 km stretch and past our secretly-planned VDO, we were down to our final Husky.
We made it two more kilometers before that Husky hit an IED and was knocked out too. The moment it happened, you could almost feel the collective "What the fuck do we do now?" emanating through the radio. The CO was riding with 3rd Platoon up front, and from his POV, things were well and truly fucked now. He was now in the same position that 1st Platoon had been in days earlier, except now he had three of his four platoons potentially stuck, with no way out and no way forward.
At this point, 3rd Platoon's PL demonstrated his experience and capability, making a suggestion that could at least get them the rest of the way to the COP safely. This last 8 km was all dead poppy fields (harvest is in May, and this was months later) in a wide valley, and we knew the last couple wadis were under the likely clear since they were in sight of the COP. 3rd Platoon suggested just off-roading through the poppy fields all the way to the last couple wadis, and driving in. Even if there were IEDs in the poppy fields, they would just be small ones designed to target dismounted personnel, not vehicles. That would avoid the need for clearance on the last few kilometers.
But that didn't solve the CO's other problem. How the hell was he supposed to get back out? It was obvious now that as soon as they got in the COP, the Taliban was going to litter the road behind with IEDs. That was when we revealed our secret plan. I informed the CO that my platoon was prepared to return the 2 km to our planned VDO location, that we had planned observation post sites that would allow us to overwatch the 20 km from directly in the middle, that we had brought the tanker specifically for this purpose, and that we had sufficient food and water for the 2-3 days that they anticipated it would take to close the base. But I explained, if we did this, I would need his help in two ways: first, he would have to bring in the fourth RCP to actually clear the last 8 km (so the flatbeds could drive out), and second, he'd need to call for an additional platoon to come in to help watch some of the 10 km hilly areas we couldn't see from our OPs.
Finally, after seeing things go so terribly wrong twice now, and with no other options, he relented. Operation Goatfuck could finally enter its 3rd phase, the "Things Actually Going How They're Supposed To" phase.
The Return of King Idiot
There's a lot of stories I can tell about just those next days that we held that VDO. From the time Special Forces air assaulted in to blow up a random hut 500m from our VDO and never even talked to us to the absolute giddiness of my Sappers to finally get to do some real Army shit and them fighting to take turns on the OP, but there's only one story that really stands out.
Being where we were, my VDO was still in the Area of Operations (AO) of King Idiot. That meant that I had to report my position to him, provide him regular updates, and he was the person that would coordinate any assets for us (i.e. if I needed air support, I'd have to arrange it through him). This was a little challenging because our position was on the opposite side of a mountain from him, preventing any radio traffic. We had a satellite phone and satellite radio that we could use to communicate, but King Idiot's base hadn't set theirs up, so we could only reach higher headquarters with that. That meant that our only communication option with King Idiot was the BFT 2, which has a sort of text messaging feature over satellite.
Generally, that's not a big deal, but in tense encounters where seconds count, it can slow down communications. Can you guess what kind of encounter we might be having soon?
A few nights into our operations from the VDO, I kick out my OP team, having them sit up top of a mountain about 500 meters from our position. Once they get in position, I get their GPS location and relay it to King Idiot via BFT 2. "OP established at AB 1234 5678. Occupied by 3 pax. Position marked with IR strobes and IR chemlights. - Outlaw 46". King Idiot's TOC staff send their acknowledgment, and I settle in for a long night of radio checks and trooping the perimeter to make sure the folks on watch are awake.
Just a few hours later, we're informed via BFT 2 that an Apache is on station in our area to help keep an eye out for us. That's a real reassuring feeling, and normally, the Battle Captain would pass your comms info along to the pilot so that they could speak and coordinate with the leader on the ground. For whatever reason, King Idiot doesn't do this, but seeing as we aren't in a firefight, I'm not that worried about it.
That is, I wasn't worried until I receive a BFT 2 message. "Apache spots two armed unidentified pax at AB 1233 5675. Confirm your position." Holy shit. That's just a few meters from my OP. Either there are two armed insurgents sneaking up on my OP, or the Apache is about to shoot the three soldiers on my OP.
I whisper hiss in my radio at the OP letting them know that they may have insurgents approaching their position, and asking them to confirm their IR strobes are lit and confirm their position. I fire back a message to King Idiot confirming that they are at the original position I messaged, and asking him for clarification on whether or not the Apache is spotting our OP or armed insurgents.
Then I wait. And wait. And wait...
When you know combat is imminent, time passes at a snails pace. It was probably just a few minutes that passed, but sitting in my MRAP and furiously sending out message after message for confirmation to King Idiot, it felt like hours.
And then, I saw something that made my blood run cold and my heart jump into my throat.
If you've never seen a missile fired at night, it's truly something to behold. When an Apache fires a Hellfire, it lights up the night sky like the Sun just briefly rose for a moment. Especially when your eyes are adjusted to the dark, it goes from pitch black to bright enough to read a book. Right in that moment, that's what I was staring at. The entire windshield of my MRAP went white with light passing overhead, and in that brief moment I was certain of what had just happened.
I leapt out of my MRAP and looked over to where my OP was. I expected to see a fireball rising out of it, and I was already halfway between fury and despair. In my heart, I knew that King Idiot had just gotten my OP killed.
Instead though, I just stood their gawking into the darkness. Trying to figure out what had happened. Where was the rocket noise? Where was the boom? Where was the explosion? And then I heard my Soldiers oohing and aahing. "Did you see that, sir? That was the brightest shooting star I've ever seen!"
Turns out King Idiot hadn't gotten my soldiers killed, and shooting stars can be bright as fuck. Still, he never bothered to even confirm back whether or not the armed personnel the Apache spotted were my men or not. I messaged King Idiot a few more times, but he apparently felt it would be fine to just let me and my men sweat it for however long. It's probably for the best that I couldn't use a radio to talk to him then, because I would have definitely gotten myself in trouble.
Operation Goatfuck: Endgame
Remember how closing the base was supposed to take 2-3 days, but I had my platoon pack 10+ days of food and water anyway? Well, it ended up taking 12 days.
When it was all said and done, we literally got to the last day of water and fuel we had before finally driving out of there. I'd ordered everyone to stop shaving to save water on day 5, so we all rolled out looking scruffy but proud. Another route clearance company covered our routes for a few days, and Second Platoon came up to finish clearance and clear the way back out for everyone. I was proud to note that they found and/or hit no IEDs on the entire stretch of road that my platoon stayed behind to monitor, and the way out was relatively uneventful.
We did have one more awful, angry, and stressful night on the way out, when my platoon was ditched with all 45 flatbeds to haul them over a particular hill, but by then the meat of Operation Goatfuck was over. We might not have been back in our racks, but we were past the danger. We all got back in with no injuries, and I was very proud to see both of my platoons return home a few months later with no loss of life, limb, or eyesight.
No matter what happens in life though, no matter how screwed up some project is, I'll always be able to see, "Well, at least this is better than the Khakrez."
submitted by MisterBanzai to MilitaryStories [link] [comments]

The french conjugation part 2: how to conjugate?

In my last post, I exposed the very basics of the french conjugation, but today, I'll write about something more specific and problematic: how french conjugation really works?
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In my last post, I already said that french conjugation is simply made like that: subject + verb + termination, so if you want to say "I'll eat", you take "Je" + mange" (radical of "manger") + rai (termination for "Je" in the "futur de l'indicatif" tense) which makes "je mangerai".
I also explained that verbs are divided in 3 groups (1er groupe -> -er group + 2ème groupe -> -ir group + 3° groupe -> irregular group) and each group can be divided in many sub groups (the group of the verbs that are conjugated like "manger", the group of verb that are conjugated like "venir",...)
A comment in my previous post also mentionned the Bescherelle which is a book for french conjugation. You should definitively check it (online version of it) as it will help you find how to conjugate a verb properly.
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So with that in mind, you should be able to conjugate the regular verbs in french with the simple tenses. But, if there are "regular" verbs, there are also irregular verbs. Here is a good list of the irregular verbs for you all. Also, if there are "simple" tenses, there are tenses that are not simple. But dont worry, they are easy if you master the conjugation of "être" and "avoir". Let me explain:
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Composed tense are tenses where the verbal group is like that: "subject + auxiliary + verb (in its participe passé form)". You are probably familiar with that syntax as it is also how the english verbs are conjugated in their composed tenses, and the similarities don't stop there. In french, the auxiliaries are "être" (to be) and "avoir" (to have). The verbs are always in their participe passé form which is made of the radical of the verb and with the termination "é" (-er verbs, not only of the 1rst group), "u" (-ir and -ire verbs) or are irregular (like "être" which becomes "été" or "avoir" which becomes "eu").
In the composed tenses, the auxiliary is the only verb that is conjugated, and in order to master the composed tenses, you will need to master the conjugations of "être" and "avoir" in the following tenses: présent, imparfait, passé simple and futur simple of the indicatif mode; présent and imparfait of the subjonctif mode and présent of the conditionel mode.
There are no thumb rule to know if a verb have "avoir" or "être" as an auxiliary, except for that one "it's almost always "avoir" except for some verbs (that you should know by heart) and even then, it's "avoir" if the verb is followed by a complément d'objet direct".
finaly, the verb in its participe passé form is accorded in gender and in number of the subject if the auxiliary is "être" but not if it's "avoir". For example: "Elles ont mangé du pain" (mangé is still "mangé" even though the subject is feminine and plural) and "Elles étaient parties au restaurant" ("parti" have an "être" auxiliary, so it take the "e" because the subject is feminine and an "s" because the subject is plural)
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And while we're at it, let's talk a bit about when to use the composed tenses, because if you remember from my last post, I said that french aimed for precision when it comes to conjugation, hence the numerous tenses and the importance of knowing when to use them. So here we go:
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Passé composé (auxiliary in its present conjugation) is the most commonly used composed tense in french. It is used as a way to talk about a past action that has ended. ex: j'ai été malade toute la semaine. tu as vu le dernier Avenger? Nous sommes allés ("allé" takes the "s" because the auxiliary is "être" and the subject is plural) en Norvège cet été.
The conditionnel passé (auxiliary in its conditionel présent conjugation) is also oftenly used, so you should know it aswell. It is used to talk about an action that would have happened if a condition was checked (usually a regret or a charge). ex: si j'avais eu un peu plus de jugeotte, je n'aurais pas fait ça. Elle était abrutie ("abruti" takes an "e" because the auxiliary is "être" and the subject is feminine) par le vin hier soir!
The plus que parfait (auxiliary in its imparfait conjugation) is to refer to an action that happen before the narrative time if the narrative tense is already in the past (it's the past of the past). ex: J'étais aux courses et je ne me suis pas rendu compte que j'avais oublié ma liste! Tu avais perdu ton portable.
The futur antérieur (auxiliary in its futur simple conjugation) is as used as the plus que parfait. It is used for an action that happened before the narative time if the narative time is in the future. For example: Tu seras déjà couchée quand je sortirai du travail. (the narrative time is given by "when I'll be out of work").
The futur antérieur can also be used to talk about an action that will happen at a given time (so the time must be given). ex: les travaux seront finis en Janvier.
The subjonctif passé (auxiliary in its subjonctif présent conjugation) is used to talk about an action that might (or might not) have happened. ex: Il faut que tu aies passé ton bac pour aller à l'université.
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And now, we get on the rarely used tenses of french.
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The passé antérieur (auxiliary in its passé simple conjugation) is like the plus que parfait, but only used when you use the "passé simple" tense (which is not commonly used). example: "Quand il eut fini, elle hurla"
The subjonctif plus que parfait (auxiliary in its subjonctif imparfait conjugation) is to talk about an action that might (or might not) have happened in the time of the naration if the time is the past. It is almost only used in litterature. example: Quand je les ai lu, je doutais qu'il eût écris ces lettres.
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And here you have it! One of the most boring part of french conjugation, but a part that you should know. Don't hesitate to share your thoughts or ask for a question :)
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EDIT: L'ironie de faire un post sur la conjugaison sans penser à la vérifier. J'ai corrigé ça grâce aux commentaires de lackaisicalquokka et de Deathletterblues et un peu de relecture.
submitted by Niarko-Polo to French [link] [comments]

Past tense imparfait conjugation

Hey everyone, I’m utilizing some online resources (duolingo & some websites) to try and give myself a good understanding of French before I take French courses in university next year.
My question is, when conjugating verbs in past tense imparfait, do ‘er’, ‘ir’ and ‘re’ verbs conjugate with different endings? I’ve found one set of endings (-ais, -ait, -ions, -iez, -aient) but are those the proper endings to use with all verbs in imparfait conjugation?
submitted by YaGirlEmmie to learnfrench [link] [comments]

I am in real need of some feedback on how i should go on treating my ADHD, Deppression, Anxiety and narcolepsy. I learned of a medication called desoxyn. Generic name, methamphetamine.

So im hoping my beggining that got someones attention. Ill start from the beggining. When i was like 7 a neurologist diognosed me with ADHD and tourrettes syndrome. As we all know there is no medication for my tourrettes so we needed to treat my ADHD because i was impulsive and couldnt focus in school or ever complete a task without getting sidetracked. So they started to give me strattera first and there was no change. Guess they thought at that point i needed a stimulant drug and they put me on Ritalin. Well it made me into a little angry and mean demon child. So they tried concerta next. We had high hopes for it but unfortunately it made my tourrettes syndrome go crazy to the point where i was in physical pain from the non stock motor tics that tensed and released my muscles non stop. So then i was given focalin which i apologize, i dont know the generic name for it but it did completely nothing for me. By then i was like 10 and just fed up with doctors and meds but i was still failing all my schooling. Thats when they gave me adderal 20mg XR and my grades started getting better and my behavior and although they did enhance my tourrettes syndrome , it was tolerable. So we thought we finally got it right. Well that was until the adderal was keeping me up all night. So they switched me to the Adderall 10mg IR twice a day and it worked finally. I got through school but when i hit highschool i stopped taking it because i got in with a bad crowd and started smoking weed because it practically took my tourrettes syndrome away. Well ill say to thos day thay weed was a gateway drug to me and led me into self medicating and looking for what would take away the tortures of tourrettes syndrome. And well eventually i found it, but it wasnt good. It was heroin. I became a heroin addict and was from the age of 17 to 23. And in that time i started suffering severe deppression and hopelessness. In and out of prison and rehab who both tried all kinds of anti deppresants, or mood stabalizers, and even tried halidol and thorazine and nothing worked. Most made me worse. Eventually i found myself at a methadone clinic at the age of 23. And i have been clean since then, im 27 now. But i wasnt fixed yet, i was still severely depressed and the methadone made me even more depressed and pretty much gave me narcolepsy because i dose every morning and it makes me lethargic and i sleep half of everyday away. I started to see a doctor because of some of the lingering effects of my past and because i was having panic attacks from experiencing 4 years of prison. So he had me take 2mg alprazolam in the morning, day, and night. And that helped with the deppression too a bit but not enough. Well August 11th 2020 i was walking to the bus station and got hit by a car. I ended up with a broken neck and arm and i gained 200 pounds in the hospital and physical rehab. So since then my life consited of going to the clinic and just laying around the house. I got a concussion and TBI which gave me excruciating headaches everyday, so we went to see a neurologist again and he prescribed me nortryptaline on top the methadone and alprazolam. Well at the time i thought it was just for headaches because it got rid of them altogether. But now i know that its a type of anti depression medication. But unfortunately it makes no difference because it didnt help with the deppression. After getting hit by a car and being obese and back living with my mother without a single friend cuz there all still doing heroin i dont think any pill will help me ever feel happy again. But i kept trying with zoloft, welbutrin, lamictal, depicote and some i cant remember. But whats even worse is that after getting off heroin and getting brain damage, my ADHD is so bad i cant even function. Ill read something and have no idea what i just read because my brain was thinking of something else and i have no sense of organization and never finish anything i start. I cant even focus enough to play a video game. So here is where i need help or advice. Its clear that i need to get back on my adderal IR. I think itll help the deppression too and the sleeping during the day. But i cant get it because every doctor that can prescribe it wants records showing that i was on it before. Like the records from the doctor who prescribed it to me 20 years ago. Which i cant even remember who the doctor was or if hes even still practicing medicine. I mean who keeps records of meds they were on 20 years ago. Even if i can figure out what pharmacy i used they dpnt have records from that long ago. So i have to just hope the doctor will put me back on the Adderal when i only have the diagnosis paper saying im ADHD. And i know for a fact they wont do it once they know im on methadone and alprazolam and nortryptaline. I shouldnt have to lie to a doctor and i dont want to. But i learned of a medication called Desoxyn which is just like Adderall but it os usrd for obesity and narcolepsy and even anxiety. Now its stronger than Adderall im pretty sure so im thinking of asking for that if i cant find the stupid proof all these doctors want. But i jusy got prescribed Citalopram last week and im going to try it but im afraid that Desoxyn and Adderall cannot be taken with that medication. Now of course if they will treat my ADHD again, ill choose it over the Citalopram. But does anybody know more about Desoxyn and Citalopram or have any advice on what i can do to get the treatment i need? Maybe some way to get the records for the doctor that i dont know about? I live in St.louis, Missouri and im doing all this without health insurance or a job. I apologize for typing so mich but you really have to know the whole situation. I hope i can get some good news or good feedback. Thank you for ypur time if you read this.
submitted by Dmnknoah77 to ADHDHelpers [link] [comments]

Overview topics/tips in Spanish tree

Since I couldn't find a list like this yet, I have created an overview of which lesson in the Spanish tree has which tips/teaches which topics*. This way, it's easier to find the right lesson if you want to practice a specific topic or want to read the tips about something again.
If there are any errors, please let me know and I'll edit this post. Also, I tried my best with the grammatical terms, but there could very well be errors in it (especially with the direct vs. indirect objects, I always have trouble telling which is which).
*These are only the topics that are mentioned in the tips, a lot of these lessons also teach some other things that are not mentioned in the tips section, so if you know some of those, feel free to let me know and I'll add them
Before first checkpoint
Checkpoint 1
Checkpoint 2
Checkpoint 3
Checkpoint 4
Checkpoint 5
No tips
Checkpoint 6
I'm guessin no tips either, but haven't unlocked it yet, so I could be wrong.
submitted by monkeymaniac9 to duolingo [link] [comments]

What do you mean it goes boom?

Captain Thraxos perused the ship manifest one more time. There was a late entry to join the convoy to Cycria. Cycria was a remote world and had been having a pirate problem with merchant traffic attacked several times over the past two years. As the pirates had got more bold the situation had become untenable and the Galactic Federation had to finally do something about it.
Thraxos was the captain of the light cruiser GFN Duhrel and he had been tasked to escort a merchant convoy from Dilolla to Cycria as deterrence to the pirates. He did not relish the assignment to babysit a motley fleet of civilians, but as GalFed captain he went where he was ordered to.
The final ship to join the convoy was the IMS Antelope. A Human merchanter that had been berthing here at Dilolla even before Thraxos had arrived. Apparently they had had some difficulty in securing new cargo to take on board and looking at the ship’s specs Thraxos could not blame anyone for not wanting to put their valuables on board this old rustbucket. But Cycria was not exactly a prime destination and apparently someone had been desperate enough to contract the Antelope to ferry their cargo to Cycria at the last minute.
IMS Antelope was an Independent Merchant Ship, owned and operated by her captain Robert Nele. Even her designation was thoroughly Human. The Humans had some of the most stringent licensing requirements to own and operate starship class drives which basically put them out of reach of civilian individuals. So, in turn, the independent merchanters had banded together and founded the Independent Merchant Ship company which held the licenses for the starship drives operated by their members with minimal interference from the company itself.
Thraxos scoffed, but the Humans were an upstart species. Perhaps it was for the best that not just anyone could get their hands on potentially volatile technology. That showed more responsibility of them than Thraxos had heard based on their reputation.
The Antelope herself was almost 60 years old and looking through her log she had mostly been operating within or near Human space. This was as far as she had ever been from home. Still, for all the tarnish on her hull, she had passed her latest spaceworthiness inspection only six months prior.
She was one of the weirdest looking ships Thraxos had ever seen. She was basically a lattice spine on which standard cargo containers were mounted like grapes on a vine. Front end had habitation and docking, the back end had its large engine, ending on a flat plate mounted on what looked like pillars. Curious.
Thraxos studied her engine specifications. Her main engine was of type Thraxos had never even heard of before, something the Humans called ‘orion’ type nuclear pulse thruster and with her mass, impulse and thrust she would be by far the slowest ship in the convoy, only barely scraping over the acceptable lower limit. Her jump engine likewise was an antiquated Type-I, only barely able to do the jumps required for this route. But she was over the bar so Thraxos had to grudgingly accept her to the convoy.
Slightly annoyed, Thraxos sent the engine specifications to his astrogator to have their course and time estimates recomputed to match the Antelope’s slow speed. Then he fired off a message to all ten ships in his convoy to prepare to unberth and meet at the system’s jump point in twelve hours.
At the start of next morning’s shift Thraxos entered the bridge to relieve the nightshift watch officer. It would be two hours until their scheduled jump off time, plenty of time to undock and make their way the 50 000 kilometers over to the jump point.
Captain Thraxos turned to the operations officer of the previous watch. “Anything interesting going on?”
Lieutenant Commander Tarkran shrugged. “Just the Humans, sir. The Antelope cast off six hours ago and has been slowly making their way to the jump point using manoeuvring thrusters only.”
Thraxos was taken aback. “What? Why?”
Tarkran shrugged again. “No idea, sir, but they’ll be arriving at the jump just before the scheduled time.”
Captain Thraxos just shook his head. “Alright, thanks. I have the bridge.”
Tarkran nodded and announced, “Captain has the bridge.” Tarkran turned and left as Thraxos sat down on the command chair.
Captain Thraxos waited for the other stations to complete their watch handover and then turned to communications. “Lieutenant Coccols, request undocking.”
“Aye, sir.” the comm officer responded.
Thraxos then turned to the astrogation officer. “Lieutenant Ulan, please prepare a course plan to take us to the jump point after we’ve moved past the station’s safety perimeter and execute once we have undocking permission.”
Next Thraxos glanced over his executive officer sitting at the operations station. “While we’re en-route, prepare a convoy placement assignment for each ship according to the exclusion zones of their engines. I want us to be in the middle. Hopefully the pirates will think we’re just another fat merchantman until it’s too late.”
Commander Nivek nodded. “Aye sir. I think I can nestle us between GMS Aelat and IXS Naholl. I’ll have to see what we can do with the human ship.”
“Very good.”
Lieutenant Coccols turned around. “Sir. Undocking clearance granted, we have 1 minute window.”
Captain Thraxos nodded. “Lieutenant Ulan, undock and execute.”
“Aye, sir.”
There was an almost imperceptible shift as the GFN Duhrel unlatched from the station and then pushed itself away from station’s bulk using its manoeuvring thrusters. After thirty seconds they had cleared the station perimeter and they were able to engage their fusion drive. Even at the minimal power that was allowed to be used near stations, it would only take them about 30 minutes to reach their designated staging point.
“Ummm… Captain?” Commander Nivek interrupted after a few minutes. “Have you looked at the exclusion chart for the Human ship?”
Thraxos furrowed his brow. “No, why?”
Commander Nivek hesitated for a moment. “I think you should.”
Captain Thraxos called up the schematic of the Human ship on his terminal. It was still one of the ugliest ships he had ever seen, but he wasn’t here to judge a beauty contest. He switched the overlay layers to the engine exclusion zone.
“What the fuck?” he exclaimed.
For most ships the exclusion zone was a cone behind them a few degrees wide. For IMS Antelope it was a whole half sphere and then some, covering just under 200 degrees of arc and extending all the way to 5000 kilometers, with an advisory zone all the way to 20 000 kilometers.
“I think I know why they’re limping out there with their manoeuvring thrusters only.” Commander Nivek posited. “There’s no way they could have fired up that drive anywhere near the station.” After a moment he continued. “I think the only place we can put them is as the last ship in the convoy with nobody behind them.”
Captain Thraxos shook his head in disbelief. “Do they have a completely unshielded reactor back there or something?”
“I don’t know, I’ve never seen anything like this, but it must be by design and approved, since they’ve passed their inspections.”
Thraxos sighed. “Well, transmit the assigned relative positions to all ships and manoeuvre us into position to wait for them.”
The convoy of all ten merchant ships had taken up their positions around the cruiser GFN Duhrel with the IXS Ikol at the front and IMS Antelope at the rear. All the ships slaved their jump engines to the control of GFN Duhrel and in concert they tore a hole in reality that whisked them to another starsystem a dozen light years away.
The system the convoy appeared in was uninhabited, a puny red dwarf with only a catalogue number as its name. They would then have to traverse the system to the next jump point that would allow them to jump to the next star in the chain to Cycria.
Most of the time in traversing the galaxy was spent moving from jump point to jump point within each starsystem. Some systems were lucky and their jump points were close-by, others had them far apart and it took a long time and a lot of Δv to traverse. The locations of the jump points and where you could jump from them depended on the background arrangement of the dark matter permeating the galaxy which warped the extra dimensions of spacetime.
The convoy would have almost a week ahead of them to traverse to the next jump point in this system, and just over two months to reach Cycria.
Captain Thraxos looked over the monitors and concluded that everything was in order. “Lieutenant Ulan, plot a course to the next jump point.”
The astrogator glanced over. “Already laid in, Captain. Ready to execute on your command.”
“Very good Lieutenant.” Thraxos acknowledged with pleasure. “Signal the convoy to get underway and execute.”
Ten of the ships in the convoy each fired up their fusion torches of various sorts and the convoy started moving, but then behind the eleventh ship, the IMS Antelope, something exploded with nuclear fury.
“CAPTAIN!” Sensor officer Birrai shouted. “The engine of the Antelope just exploded!”
“What?” The captain looked up. Just his luck that the Human rustbucket would have a catastrophic engine failure immediately upon firing up that lethal engine of theirs. “Signal all stop!”
Just as soon as the fleet had started moving the torches died down as each ship ceased accelerating.
Thraxos hit transmit button on his terminal. “This is captain Thraxos of GFN Duhrel to IMS Antelope, do you require assistance?”
Thraxos looked at the sensor scan on his screen as he waited for their reply. At least there didn’t seem to be much debris. Hopefully the Humans didn’t have many casualties.
A calm, if slightly confused, voice came on the speakers. “This is IMS Antelope. Uh, negative on assistance. Why, what is the problem?”
Captain Thraxos looked at his sensor officer, who just spread his arms. Then back to the sensor display, until he finally hit transmit again. “Duhrel to Antelope, did you not just have a catastrophic engine failure?”
“Um. Oh!” There was a sudden realization in the voice on the radio. “Negative Duhrel. That was the detonation of our 50 kiloton nuclear propulsion charge.”
“50 kiloton propulsion?! YOUR SHIP SHITS OUT NUCLEAR BOMBS!?” Captain Thraxos immediately regretted his lapse in decorum, but the sheer insanity of the idea had caught him completely off guard.
“Affirmative Duhrel. Apologies for the confusion. The shaped nuclear charges are used to push against the driveplate at the back of the ship which transfers the momentum imparted to the ship through a staged shock absorber assembly.”
After the convoy had gotten over the shock of the Humans’ propulsion system the rest of the voyage to the jump point had passed quietly. Or as quietly as a fleet trailing a stream of nuclear explosions can go. As had the second and third jumps.
When the convoy appeared in the fourth system on the route, another nondescript nameless star, things rapidly went south. Before the convoy had a chance to start moving a warhead detonated half a million kilometers away from the jump point.
Three pirate cruisers brought up their EM suites and aimed their targeting radars at the merchant convoy. The pirates were well poised about to catch any merchants that chose to try to flee, with each pirate able to cover a large part of the possible trajectories.
An ultimatum was transmitted on all the universal emergency channels. “This is captain Qauk’ats of The Blood Raiders. Stand down your ships and prepare to be boarded. Any resistance will be met with lethal force.”
Captain Thraxos considered his options. The Federation Fleet Command had not anticipated this heavy pirate presence. The previous raids had been performed by single ships each. His light cruiser might be able to take on two of the pirates, depending on how well they were equipped and trained, but all three would be too much. Especially when they were spread out like this, so he would not be able to concentrate his point defences in any single particular direction.
On the other hand he had not yet betrayed that GFN Duhrel was a warship. His ship had been chosen for this because it was roughly the correct size to pass as a medium merchantman. Could he use this to his advantage somehow…
“Lieutenant Coccols, signal the convoy to stand by. Comm laser only, let’s not tip our hands yet.”
Captain Thraxos prayed that none of the merchanters would panic and start running, he was only one ship, he couldn’t be in two places at once to protect everyone.
“Lieutenant Commander Birrai, use passive scanners only. Limit actives to equipment a merchantman could realistically have. Go loud on sensors only if our cover is blown.”
Thraxos was stalling for time and he knew it. He needed something to give him an extra edge somehow. Something, anything. Just one way to neutralize one of the pirate cruisers to even the odds.
On the screen vectors appeared showing the pirate ships starting to accelerate carefully towards the convoy since the convoy seemed to be capitulating. Whatever he comes up with he would have to come up with quickly.
Then the comm officer piped up. “Captain, we have a laser message from IMS Antelope. Captain Nele wants to talk with you.”
Thraxos sighed. Great, he didn’t have time to babysit a panicking merchanter right now. “Signal them to just stand by.”
Few moments later lieutenant Coccols replied. “He’s being very insistent, sir.”
“Fine.” Thraxos grumbled. “Put him on my monitor.”
Captain Thraxos waited until on his screen appeared the image of a middle aged human wearing a black collared suit with a white shirt underneath and a tie around his neck. On his head he had a white hat with a black visor. On the hat was a golden patch with a stylized antelope rimmed with golden stylized ropes.
“Captain Nele, what do you want?” Thraxos tried to hide the annoyance in his voice, but it still leaked through. “We’re kind of busy right now.”
Captain Nele ignored his tone. “Captain Thraxos, I’m sorry to interrupt, but I have a suggestion. Am I correct to assume that three pirate ships are too many for you to handle?”
Thraxos hesitated.
Nele sighed. “Captain, this is no time for ego. Is it so?” He looked at Thraxos with stern eyes. “Because if it is, then the Antelope can take on one of them.”
Thraxos’ eyes widened. “What? No, out of the question!”
“Captain, the Antelope’s driveplate is designed to withstand repeated nuclear explosions with minimal ablation. It is tougher than battleship hull. And I bet the pirates don’t know that our ship ‘shits out nuclear bombs’ either as you so eloquently put it.” Nele glared at Thraxos. “I’m not planning to die today after a failed last stand, so one more time: do you need help or not?”
Thraxos glanced to the side. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he did need help. After an agonizingly long moment he turned back to face the other captain. “Yes. You’re right. We can probably take on two, but not all three of them.”
Nele nodded. “Alright. So here’s what I have in mind...”
The control room of the merchantman was spartan compared to the bridge of a warship. Captain Robert Nele was standing next to the sensocomm station looking at the radar plot. His heart raced and he hoped he wasn’t about to do something completely stupid. He glanced around and he knew that the rest of his crew felt the same. But they had to at least try.
He breathed deep once and then exhaled. “Alright Terri, jettison the cargo containers. Arkady, use the azipod thrusters and lets make like bat out of hell.”
The engineer, Terri Grove, hit buttons on her console and a series of thumps echoed throughout the ship. “All containers released.”
Helm officer Arkady Stachowiak used the translation joystick to pull the ship backwards out from between the containers that were now lazily floating in space. “We’re free.” Then he turned the ship to a new heading and fired the azipod manoeuvring thrusters at full. “Batting out of hell.”
The azipod thrusters could be turned to allow the ship to accelerate in almost any direction. They were meant for use near ports for both manoeuvring and mobility where the Antelope couldn’t use her main nuclear pulse engine. Because of this the azipods were unusually powerful for a ship of her size and with the Antelope shed of all her cargo they could give her pretty decent acceleration.
Niels Becker glanced up to the captain standing next to him. “Radio from Duhrel.” He pressed a button to put it on the loudspeakers.
Captain Thraxos’ voice sounded frantic as he yelled at the Antelope. “Get back here Antelope! Didn’t you hear what they said!”
Robert shook himself to get into character. Then he pressed a button on Niels’ station and shouted back in panic. “Fuck that shit! I’m getting the hell out of here! It’s every man for themselves!”
He took a second to steady himself again. “Alright Niels, let’s see which pirate takes the bait. Arkady, once we know who is chasing us, turn us so our driveplate is pointed at them. Make a good show of trying to get away, we need to lure them out far enough.”
“Will do, Bob.” Arkady acknowledged. “I’ll give them a merry chase.”
“Now we just hope they want us disabled and don’t use missiles.” Robert voiced everyone’s concern. “Terri, how are your modifications coming along?”
Without even looking up from her console, Terri replied, “I’ve got the launcher patched. I’ve voided pretty much every warranty we have, but I managed to coax it to load four charges at once. With our biggest bombs that’ll give them a two megaton surprise.”
Robert nodded. “Very good.”
Terri continued, “The bombs turned out to be trickier. I should be able to get their attitude control software overridden, but they also have hardware safeties. I had to send Jonesy to physically bypass them. But that also means he can slap a radio module on them while he’s at it, so we’ll be able to detonate these on command.”
Robert grinned. “Excellent. Great work. Let me know when Jonesy is done with the mods.”
“Aye. Just one last thing. Once we load up any bombs into the launcher, we won’t be able to unload them any more.”
“Alright. Keep the launcher on full manual then and load only on my command for now.”
Niels interjected. “Contact-3 is altering course to intercept. I’ve coloured her pink on the radar plot.”
Robert glanced over at the helm. “Arkady?”
“On it. On our new course they’ll reach weapons range in 52 minutes. By that time we’ll have spent 84% of our manoeuvring propellant.”
Terri winced.
Robert noticed it. “What’s wrong, Terri?”
“Oh, I’m just thinking of our next overhaul. The azipods weren’t meant to be used this hard for this long.”
“Good to see you’re still an optimist.” Arkady commented. As Terri glowered at him, he added, “You think we’re gonna live long enough to service them.”
Terri laughed and the rest of the command crew chuckled.
Their moment of mirth was, however, cut short when Niels announced a message from contact-3.
“Antelope, this is captain Mas’ieh of raider Bathed in Blood. Stand down immediately or you will be fired upon. This is your only warning.”
After a moment of silence captain Nele said, “let them eat static.”
It had been a tense half hour as the Antelope had led the pirate raider away from the rest of the group. Once they were too far away for Bathed in Blood to turn back and help his pirate brethren the GFN Duhrel had broken off the convoy and raced to meet the other two pirates.
With all the pieces in motion it was now captain Mas’ieh’s turn to make a choice. He had three choices: continue pressing the Antelope, turn back and attack GFN Duhrel, or turn away and run.
If he turned to attack GFN Duhrel, he would arrive to the battle too late to help Red Mayhem and Dread Rising. If the two ships could not beat Duhrel, then he would face Duhrel on his own and it might go any way depending on how much damage Mayhem and Dread had inflicted on her. If on the other hand Mayhem and Dread managed to destroy Duhrel, then he had just let the Antelope escape for no reason.
If he decided to run, then his chances depended on whether Mayhem and Dread could destroy or disable Duhrel. Duhrel was faster so she would be able to catch up with Bathed in Blood before he could slip out of the system at the next jump point. But if Mayhem and Dread did manage to destroy Duhrel, his attempt to flee would not be looked upon kindly by the leader of the Raiders.
So, no matter what happens his only real option was to press on Antelope. If Mayhem and Dread won against GFN Duhrel, then capturing the Antelope was the most useful thing he could do. If Mayhem and Dread lost to GFN Duhrel, then he was in no better or worse position than if he had turned away from Antelope. He would still have to face Duhrel just the same.
He sent a message to captain Qauk’ats aboard the Red Mayhem with his plan of action to continue chasing the Antelope to make sure she couldn’t escape, and the rationale for taking this action.
What he didn’t mention was that if Mayhem and Dread lost to Duhrel, but damaged her enough for him to destroy her… well, then he would have just become the new leader of The Blood Raiders.
The atmosphere was tense in the control room of the IMS Antelope. Minutes ticked by as the raider Bathed in Blood chased them. Several hundred thousand kilometers away the GFN Duhrel and raiders Red Mayhem and Dread Rising were fast approaching each other.
“Nuclear explosion.” Niels announced suddenly. “The raiders have started firing on GFN Duhrel. I think Duhrel’s point defence got that warhead. It was too far to cause any damage.”
Robert nodded in silence. They could do nothing more to help, that battle was now up to captain Thraxos.
“Two more. This time against contact-2. Their point defence stopped them.”
Thraxos and Duhrel had an advantage. They could fire their magazines empty if they had to without consequence. For the pirates, every missile they shot was invaluable, for they couldn’t just pull in to a naval yard to resupply. But there were still two pirate ships and if their magazines were full, then Duhrel would be in serious trouble.
“No fire for a few moments. I think they were just probing each other at extreme missile range.”
Robert turned to Niels. “How long until Bathed in Blood is in missile range, assuming their range is similar?”
Niels looked at the range plot. “Two minutes.”
Suddenly there was a radiation alarm. Robert looked at Niels with the look of ‘are you sure’ all over his face.
Niels looked at his instruments. “That was ten thousand kilometers away and off to the side. I think it was a warning shot. Negligible radiation dose.”
Robert thought for a moment and weighed his options. “We’ll keep going. Hopefully they won’t waste more missiles on us.”
The uneasy silence returned as more minutes ticked by. Only occasionally broken as Niels reported events of the battle happening far away.
The exchange of fire increased as the combatants got closer. GFN Duhrel was pressing on contact-2, the Dread Rising, and closing the distance as fast as she could. Her point defences were working at near saturation as the two pirates poured missile after missile upon her. But likewise, her missiles pushed the pirate crew aboard the Dread Rising to their limit as well.
“HIT!” Niels exclaimed! “Contact-2 has left behind debris.”
Everyone cheered. A hit was nice, but it wasn’t the end of the battle. Nowhere near. Warships were compartmentalized to the maximum and even a direct warhead hit only crippled them locally.
Soon the flashes of missile warheads were joined by the invisible beams of anti-ship lasers as GFN Duhrel and Dread Rising reached energy weapon range. Both ships took hits to their hull.
Warship armour had diamond threads woven into it, which were as close as you could get to thermal superconductivity. Each time a laser flashed across a panel, the weave would try to spread out the thermal load to try to keep the plating from vaporizing locally where it was hit and hopefully the plate would be able to radiate the heat load away before another hit. But if any plate was saturated by heat, the entire plate would melt all at once.
Niels was able to see thermal spikes on his IR scopes, but his instruments weren’t powerful enough to resolve what effects those hits had. Neither were the instruments of the other merchanters who were relaying their scanner data to the Antelope as well, which let Niels see the Bathed in Blood even though it was in the shadow of their driveplate. Otherwise the plate would have been a blind spot for them, for no sensor could be mounted on it that would be able to withstand the constant bombardment of nuclear fire it was under in normal operation.
They could only guess how the battle was going. Both ships were streaming air and metal behind them. Both ships were hurt, but how badly was anyone’s guess. Then their own trouble started.
Terri frowned. “I think we’ve just been shot at by Bathed in Blood with their lasers. I’m reading an increased thermal load on the driveplate. Activating cooling system.”
Robert swallowed. This was it for them. “Here goes nothing then. Arkady, start jinking with the azipods but make sure the driveplate remains between us. Let’s make it look good and not give them too easy a target.”
“I think we just had a near miss. The driveplate heat load spiked again, but much less. I think only the halo of the laser caught us this time.”
Robert nodded. “Keep going.”
With their overpowered azipods being able to move them laterally in almost any direction the cargoless Antelope was an exceedingly difficult target for the Bathed in Blood to hit compared to a warship. But every jink burned even more of their manoeuvring propellant. They wouldn’t be able to keep this up for too much longer.
“Direct hit on our plate.” Terri announced once more.
“Vent all our airlocks, let’s make them think they hurt us.”
The Antelope shuddered a little as the airlocks blew out a cloud of air around the ship.
“Too bad we didn’t think of loading some junk in them before hand.” Niels commented.
Robert grinned. “Yeah, but this’ll have to do. Terri, load up a 10 kiloton starter charge into the launcher. Next time they score a direct hit, fire it. Arkady, when it goes boom, put us into a spin. Hopefully they’ll think they’ve hit our engines and disabled us.”
“Got it.” Arkady acknowledged.
Terri hit some buttons on her console. “Charge loaded. Arkady, when I say ‘stop’ stop thrusting. I don’t want us to drift out of the driveplate’s shadow before the charge goes off.”
Arkady nodded.
The Bathed in Blood scored a few more near misses and but then the heat on the plate spiked again. A direct hit.
“Stop!” Terri shouted, then hit the button to manually fire the drive once. A few moments later there was a brilliant flash visible to the Bathed in Blood and the Antelope felt the surge of acceleration as the shock absorbers pushed their ship with the momentum of the nuclear explosion in front of them. Arkady immediately used the azipods to give their ship a good bit of spin, making it turn end over end.
This was the moment when Robert bet them all-in. If the pirate cruiser would fire their laser even one more time, they could hull them straight through. For a merchantman had no armour plating cladding it everywhere like a warship did.
The bridge was deathly silent as everyone were holding their breaths. Seconds passed. Then seconds more passed. The recharge time of the pirate’s spinal laser came and went and there was no Earth shattering kaboom. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief and the seconds turned into minutes. The pirates wanted a prize and they thought they had it.
Even as the battle lulled here, in the distance, the battle between Duhrel and the pirates raged on.
Captain Thraxos had managed to break the Dread Rising in the laser exchange. The pirate cruiser was a wreck, hulled straight through in multiple places with a large hole where her main powerplant used to be. But Duhrel had suffered greatly as well. On one side her hull had been scoured clean of her point defences. A number of missile launchers were disabled or destroyed and several compartments were open to space as well. She was streaming air as she turned towards the remaining pirate. All the while they continued exchanging as much missile fire as they could.
But the crew of the Antelope had no time to spectate for long. With them ‘disabled’ and dead in space the raider Bathed in Blood had been able to close the remaining distance much faster and they were getting ready to pull up alongside them.
Captain Nele stood at the sensocomm station and watched the plot with officer Becker. He and Niels kept glancing at each other nervously as the distance closed. Getting the final part of their plan correct was critical, for they would only get one chance. Once their element of surprise was lost, they would be sitting ducks to the missiles of the pirate raider.
“Terri, load up the launcher with four of the biggest charges we have. Arkady, once Bathed in Blood is within 10 kilometers, stabilize us and aim the driveplate at him. Terri, once we’re stabilized go to rapid fire on the launcher with as many of the 500 kiloton charges as you can.”
Robert breathed deep to calm himself. “Detonate the charges when you think is optimal, or if it seems they’ve spotted our ruse. Let’s hope this works.”
Terri nodded and worked frantically on her console to execute the instructions. She would have to program the bombs to rotate to face Bathed in Blood instead of their own driveplate. She’d replaced the normal inertial stabilizing software with her own and uploaded it to the bombs, but she still had to compute the difference based on her best guess where the Bathed in Blood would be in relation to them when the bombs would be triggered. The bombs couldn’t do it themselves, since they had no external sensors, only gyros so they knew their own orientation and nothing else.
“20 kilometers.” Niels announced.
Time seemed to crawl as every person ran on adrenaline.
“15 kilometers.”
Arkady held the stick, ready to execute. He had already turned the azipods ready to cancel their rotation, but then he would have to turn to face the pirate cruiser.
“12 kilometers. 11 kilometers. 10 kilometers.”
Arkady waited for a moment more before he pulled on the stick to make sure they would stop as close to the target attitude as possible. The ship heaved as the azipods worked to halt its turn. With the spin nulled, Arkady then rolled the ship so the azipods wouldn’t have to slew to a new direction before he could point the ship towards the pirate. He wanted to shave every second he could.
“On target!” Arkady announced.
Terri hit the button to execute the program. “Launching.”
The whole operation had took only seconds and the pirates were caught completely off guard. The pirate ship took no action as the four little elongated spheres flew toward it from the little hole in the middle of the Antelope’s massive driveplate. A few seconds later another group of spheres flew out and another.
The pirate ship finally stopped their approach with their manoeuvring thrusters and started to turn their spinal laser to point at the not-as-disabled-as-they-thought merchantman to finish them off.
Terri waited until the last moment possible before the first group of nukes would drift past the pirate and put the ship out of the cone of their shaped charges. Then she pressed the fire button. “Firing!”
A dozen 500 kt nukes exploded in unison at point blank range to the pirate cruiser. Six megatons total of nuclear fury. But these weren’t just nukes, they were shaped charges with most of the blast directed forward through a heavy layer of tungsten that was turned into vapour and shot as plasma towards the hapless pirate whose hull did not have the heavy reinforcement the Antilope’s own driveplate did.
At point blank range this barrage could have hulled a battleship.
Then a few seconds later another 2 megaton barrage exploded. Then another.
Bathed in Blood finally finished turning to bring their spinal laser on the merchantman, but it did not stop. It continued to turn, its laser remaining dark. A cloud of air and debris surrounded the hulk of the pirate ship.
Then the fourth barrage of bombs hit their main powerplant and Bathed in Blood split in two as the reactor amidships exploded.
Sound of debris rang all around the Antelope as the explosion pushed against its driveplate, pushing the ship harmlessly away from the destroyed hulk of the pirate cruiser.
“Holy. Fucking. Shit.” Niels mouthed as he looked at his sensor screen.
Captain Robert Nele walked over to his chair and collapsed into it as the tension of the adrenaline in his system disappeared. Everyone on the bridge deflated as if they had been balloons from which the air had been let out.
“Reload the drive with propulsive charges, get us the fuck out of here.” Robert breathed heavy with relief.
Terri fired the last modified charges to clear the launcher. Her hand shook as she hovered over the fire button. She couldn’t bring herself to press it, not any more. The pirate ship was already more than destroyed. She let the nukes drift away past the wreck as she adjusted the loading priority for the launcher and reset it to standard automatic operation.
In few seconds the first 10 kt charge aimed at their own plate fired and pushed them away. Terri let the computer take over and soon the Antelope picked up speed at great rate, galloping away from the broken and hulled wreck of the pirate ship like her namesake. Empty of cargo even the lightest charges accelerated her like she was an olympic sprinter. The direction didn’t matter, as long as it was away.
They’d already forgotten the battle that had been going on elsewhere.
Ten minutes later the numb silence in the control room was broken by a radio call.
“GFN Duhrel to IMS Antelope. Captain Nele, what is your status?”
As IMS Antelope joined back with the convoy, GFN Duhrel pulled up to alongside her. Or what was left of GFN Duhrel. The battle with the pirates had taken a tremendous toll on the light cruiser. There was nary a square meter on her hull that wasn’t scarred by battle damage. There was a large gash along one side and even a hole clear through her. The other side was scoured clean of her hull mounted weapons and sensors and several compartments were open to space. Over third of her crew were dead. It was a small miracle she was still flying at all.
But the pirate fleet had paid even more dearly. All three cruisers floated dead in space as wasted, hulled wrecks. Bathed in Blood lay in twain with her spine broken. Dread Rising was missing an entire quarter of the ship where the powerplant had used to be. And Red Mayhem lay shattered in pieces after multiple missile hits when Duhrel had finally managed to overwhelm her point defences.
There were very few survivors from the pirate fleet, and even fewer who had wanted to be a survivor. Only fifteen lifepods had been launched from the hulks, out of their total crew of a hundred and twenty. The rest had perished in the battle, or chosen to perish in the hulks. The survivors’ pods would be picked up in due time to face justice for their actions.
Captain Thraxos watched the Human ship on his screen and saluted. The Antelope may have been old and tarnished, she may have looked odd and ugly, but right now captain Thraxos was proud to have her and her crew in his fleet. She was no longer part of the convoy, she was one of its protectors. And it was thanks to her that they had triumphed today against insurmountable odds.
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ir past tense endings video

The Preterite Tense: Regular Verbs Ending in -ER & -IR ... Regular French Verbs ending in -ER and -IR - YouTube Group 2 Regular French Verbs ending in How to form ER and IR verbs in the preterite (past) tense ... Learn Spanish Verbs: Present, past, and future of SER ... Ir Conjugation: The Verb Group 2 Regular French Verbs ending in Pronunciation of Regular Past Tense Endings - YouTube

Learn endings ir past tense with free interactive flashcards. Choose from 500 different sets of endings ir past tense flashcards on Quizlet. To conjugate an -ir verb in the present tense, remove the infinitive ending and then add the appropriate endings. For example, here are the present tense conjugations for the regular -ir verbs choisir, finir (to finish), and réussir (to succeed): Study: When speaking about the past in English, you choose which past tense to use depending on the context and the meaning you wish to convey.In Spanish sentences, you chose which past tense you use depending only on the meaning. you wish to convey.. Here is how you conjugate [-IR] verbs in the imperfect (past) tense! ID: 574380 Language: English School subject: English as a Second Language (ESL) Grade/level: Grade 5-6 Age: 10-12 Main content: Past simple Other contents: regular verbs, verb endings Add to my workbooks (9) Download file pdf Add to Google Classroom Add to Microsoft Teams Preterite (Past Tense) Conjugation of ir – Pretérito (pretérito perfecto simple) de ir. Spanish Verb Conjugation: yo fui, tú fuiste, él / Ud.… Unlike regular past tense verbs, irregular past tense verbs don’t follow any easy to remember rules. And so, students simply need to memorize irregular past tense verbs. Here is a list of common irregular past tense verbs with example sentences. go – went – I went to the zoo yesterday. see – saw – I saw an elephant at the zoo. Learn verbs endings spanish ir past tense with free interactive flashcards. Choose from 500 different sets of verbs endings spanish ir past tense flashcards on Quizlet. Learn the endings for present indicative verbs. The present indicative tense is used in Spanish to mean three different things. Using the regular -ir verb vivir (to live), "yo vivo" might mean "I live," "I am living," or "I do live." To conjugate the verb, replace the -ir with the ending that matches the subject.. Yo (I): -o.Yo vivo (I live). For past tense pronunciation for regular verbs, the final -ed ending has three different pronunciations: /t/, /d/, and /id/. Pronunciation of ED | The /t/ Sound. Past Tense Pronunciation Rules: Final -ed is pronounced /t/ after all voiceless sounds. Voiceless sounds are made by pushing air through your mouth; no sound comes from your throat. View Past Tense Notes (ar, er, ir)-1.pptx from SPAN 1412 at Lone Star College System. Unidad 3 Desafío 1 Vocabulary Past tense regular –ar verbs 1.To talk about actions completed in the past, we

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The Preterite Tense: Regular Verbs Ending in -ER & -IR ...

Learn and practice the pronunciation of regular past tense verbs ending in -ed. In this video Mrs Stevens will show viewers how to take infinitive verbs ending in ER and IR and conjugate them in the preterite tense.Pupils will then be gu... Learn how to conjugate Ir and more verbs in one of our FREE online classes: http://bit.ly/2UjCrDxCheck out the next video in our verb conjugation series: htt... Get ready to master 4 Spanish verbs in 3 tenses. Learn the verbs “to be” -- “ser” or “estar”, “to have” -- “tener”, “to go” -- “ir” in ... A Spanish Grammar Music Video to help you remember...How to conjugate regular verbs that end in -ER and -IR in the preterite tense! http://LFWA.COM presents GROUP 2 regular French Verbs ending in "IR" in the PASSÉ COMPOSÉ - Lesson 45 of Alexa’s popular Beginner’s French Essentials course.... http://LFWA.COM presents GROUP 2 regular French Verbs ending in "IR" in the PRESENT TENSE - Lesson 44 of Alexa’s popular Beginner’s French Essentials course.... https://goo.gl/zrUfVx Click here and get the best resources online to master French grammar and improve your vocabulary with tons of content for FREE! ↓ Chec...

ir past tense endings

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